A STARDUST SURVIVOR who lost one of her best friends in the blaze said it felt like she was trapped in the toilets for “a lifetime” and thought she was going to die as smoke filled the room before she and two others were rescued by firemen.
Another witness told the Dublin District Coroner’s Court jury today how she began to pray after becoming trapped in the nightclub and was rescued by firemen at the moment she finished reciting the Lord’s Prayer.
The inquest heard evidence today from three witnesses who were trapped in various toilets in the complex on the night of the fire, which claimed the lives of 48 young people when it broke out in the early hours of Valentine’s Day 1981.
Deirdre Dames was 18 at the time and attended the Stardust with her good friend Margaret Kiernan (18), who lost her life in the blaze.
She told the court she had been out dancing when one of her friends pointed out the fire and said they should leave.
She was heading back towards Margaret and her other friends when the DJ made an announcement about a small fire and told everyone to head for the exits.
The witness told Gemma McLoughlin Burke BL, a member of the coroner’s legal team, that a male friend grabbed her hand and said: “Come on quick run”. She said she was heading over to the table but when the lights went out, she lost him.
“I couldn’t breathe and I couldn’t see,” she said, explaining how she then crawled to the toilets on her hands and knees.
She said there were two people ahead of her in the toilets.
Asked to describe the atmosphere in the room, Ms Dames said: “It was mental, you couldn’t see, you couldn’t breathe. The chap was trying to put water onto our faces. I was getting sick, and I got weak so I put my head down the toilet, you know to try and get more water but nothing was coming out.”
She said there was smoke in the toilets, and she kept saying “get the windows open”.
“There were people screaming outside to get us out and we kept saying we can’t, we can’t get out. We can’t open the windows. They won’t open. They won’t open,” explained the witness.
“You could hear people outside screaming ‘they’re in there, Jesus get them out, get them out’ but they couldn’t do anything for us.”
She said she could remember steel plates and bars on the window.
Ms Dames told Brenda Campbell KC, representing the family of Margaret Kiernan, that the last time she saw her friend was on the dancefloor when they were all dancing together.
“I said come on we’ll get the last boogey in and I never saw her after that,” said Ms Dames.
She confirmed she and Margaret had been friends since primary school and lived in close proximity to each other.
Ms Dames said that as the smoke took hold in the toilets, “you couldn’t breathe, you just thought: ‘That’s it, Jesus we’re gone’.
She said at one point, someone opened the door and she said ‘close that door fast’ because the fire was coming in.
“The flames were coming right in on top of us,” she said. “It was either stay in there and choke or; I don’t want to say the other word. We couldn’t breathe.”
She said the man who was in the toilets put on the taps so they could try to get water into their mouths.
“I think the people outside were more hysterical than we were because they were trying their best…you could hear them saying: ‘Jesus get them out get them out”.
She said it felt like they were trapped in the toilets for “a lifetime” before the fire brigade came in and rescued them.
Louise Murray, 17 at the time, told the inquest today that she also ended up trapped in a toilet – located at the rear of the stage – for a time before she was rescued from the blaze.
Ms Murray described inhaling debris that felt like “lumps of chewing gum, but hot” and said she had no voice for a year after the fire. When it did come back it was like “a broken microphone”, she said.
She said she had been on the stage “messing and still dancing” before she noticed the fire.
Ms Murray said it looked small at first but when the shutter went up the blaze “flew across the ceiling.”
She said the lights went out and there was a one room toilet at the back of the stage which she and others went into. She said she could see “thick black smoke pouring in over the top of the door”.
She told how she came out of the toilet and turned right and ended up in the star’s dressing room. She said there was also a toilet in this room and she went in and lifted off the top of the cistern to get some relief from the heat.
“You just felt like it was like an oven,” she explained.
She said everyone else tried to do the same and some of those present tried to put their head down the toilet bowl.
Ms Murray said she then came out of this toilet and picked up pints of beer which she kept swishing round her mouth to try and help because of the hot debris she was inhaling.
“I was taking in deep breaths and I‘d scream,” said Ms Murray. “Eventually I kind of gave up hope.”
She said after a while she thought of her family and friends and went into a kind of “trance”. Ms Murray said she started to pray and asked the others in the room to join in with the “Our Father”. She said that as soon as the prayer was finished, the door was kicked in and she could see “a big white light” as firemen came to bring them out of the building.
She said she was given the kiss of life by a man outside and was then brought to hospital.
Breda Walsh, 19 at the time, told the inquest that after the fire was noticed, she ran into the gents toilet near the front door by mistake. “I think we all thought we were going for the exit door but we were going for the toilet door,” she said, adding there were about 18 people in the toilets at the time.
“Everyone was screaming and there were people on the windows trying to pull the bars off,” she said. She confirmed to counsel that there were also steel panels on the windows.
Ms Walsh said the smoke was coming in and one of the young men kept putting her face to a hole in the wall to get some air and taking turns himself to do the same.
She said she then fainted from the smoke and a short time later she was rescued by the fire brigade.
Evidence was also heard today from Helen Henby, who was in the company of Mary and Martina Keegan and Mary Kenny who all lost their lives in the blaze.
She confirmed to counsel at the inquest that she had also seen Michael Griffith, her next door neighbour, earlier in the night leaving the dancefloor. Mr Griffith also died in the fire.
Ms Henby told how she had been dancing with her four friends, Antoinette, Mary and Martina Keegan and Mary Kenny when the fire was noticed.
She said after they collected their bags the lights went out and people began running and screaming.
Ms Henby said she and her friends were all holding hands as they tried to make their way to an exit, but they became separated as the heat took hold and she crawled under a table to get away from debris falling from the ceiling.
She told Ms McLoughlin Burke that the lights went out and after that “it was just madness”.
“We were holding onto each other, everyone was screaming and the heat was just too much. All I remember is thick black smoke; it crowded over us.”
She said some of the debris falling from the ceiling was “glowing with fire”, the smoke was dense and people were falling over each other and screaming.
Ms Henby said she crawled out from under the table and was lying on the floor. “I thought I was dead. I just lay there,” she said.
She said as she was lying on the ground in an area around exit five someone came and pulled her out.
Ms Henby said she had suffered third degree burns all over her body as well as burns to her head for which she had undergone several operations. She said she spent four months in hospital after the fire.
Evidence was also heard today from Joseph O’Reilly and David Mulligan who gave separate accounts of attempting to leave through the front door, exit two. The two men said they were hampered by the large crowds pushing towards the main entrance.
The two men both gave accounts of witnessing a bouncer kicking open a door to a passageway which led to the Lantern Rooms and said they escaped the building this way.
Mr Mulligan said he had decided to leave the Stardust at around 1.25am on the night of the fire and as he was getting his coat he saw a bouncer lead a girl who was crying to the door. He said the bouncer opened the door with a key, let the girl out and then locked the door again.
He told Ms McLoughlin Burke that as he was putting his coat on, he saw something flickering in the partitioned off area and thought it was a flashlight before the partition was lifted up and he realised it was a fire.
He said very quickly, “stuff started dropping down from the ceiling” that were “the size of your hand”.
The inquest continues tomorrow.
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