Stardust witness says 'all sorts of tall tales' told about what happened on the night of the fire

A WITNESS AT the Stardust inquest has agreed that there were “all sorts of tall tales” and stories circulating about what had happened at the nightclub on the night of the fire.

Evidence was heard today from Michelle Murray, who was a student working part time in the Lantern Rooms on the night of the fire.

The inquest has heard that the Stardust had been open for three years as a venue for various music concerts and dances when the fire broke out in the early hours of Valentine’s Day 1981. There were three venues on the site, including another function area known as the Lantern Rooms and a bar known as the Silver Swan.

In her statement, read to the inquest today, Murray said she and three friends went behind the shutters in the dispense bar for their break during their shift.

She said they then went to watch the disco dancing competition that was taking place in the Stardust before going back to the Lantern Rooms.

A few minutes later, someone came in and started banging on the shutters of the bar before another person grabbed a fire extinguisher and ran back into the Stardust.

She said her supervisor then came in and said there was a small fire and told them to get their coats and leave.

Murray said she left through the Lantern Rooms exit. She said she remembered “a chap” outside the Lantern Rooms in a white shirt who told her he saw someone slitting the shutter and pouring paraffin over it. She said she didn’t know who this person was and had never seen him before.

At the inquest today Murray agreed with Bernard Condon SC, representing a number of the families of the deceased, that there were all sorts of tall tales being told at the time and stories circulating about what had happened.

She confirmed that the man did not say anything about when he had seen this or who he had seen do it.

Caroline Maher, who was 18 at the time and worked as a lounge girl, said the fire initially seemed “quite small” and she thought it could be easily contained but in a short space of time it spread from the seat up to the ceiling.

In statements made to gardaí in 1981 and read to the inquest today, Maher said when the fire was first noticed, someone pulled up the remainder of the partition and as soon as they did so she saw smoke “gush out” from the fire towards the dance floor and the flames “rushing up the wall” and setting the ceiling on fire.

She told Brenda Campbell KC, representing a number of families of the young people who died, that she first saw “an orange flame” which she thought would be dealt with quickly but the fire “seemed to gain traction” fast and spread out from there.

“It just seemed to take hold so very quickly,” she said.

In her deposition, Maher said she heard people shout “fire fire”. She said she walked toward exit number six and as she did so “the smoke seemed to follow me” and “gushed out” after her as she made her way outside. She said only a few people had gone out the door before her and she didn’t see many people come out after her.

The inquest also heard evidence today from Mairead Brady, who worked as a supervisor in the club.

In a statement made at the time, she told how, within minutes of staff getting out through the kitchen door, she witnessed the hall at the front of the building on fire and firemen trying to break down the main doors of the building which were closed by that stage.

Brady said people in the crowd outside and the firemen were also trying to break the glass on the toilet windows at the front of the building and she could hear the “people screaming inside those windows trying to get out”.

The supervisor said she worked part time at the Stardust and the Lantern Rooms and was in charge of about 25 waitresses working in the club and a number of boys who did the washing up.

She said when they left through the kitchen and went around to the front of the building, both of the doors at the main entrance were still open. She said the fire engines arrived shortly afterwards and one of the units stopped outside the main door, by which time had closed. “The firemen were trying to break down the doors,” she said.

In the statement, Brady said she was collecting glasses in the Stardust when she noticed a flame at the back of the shutters near the dispense bar. She said there didn’t appear to be any smoke in that area at this stage and she through the dispense bar into the Lantern Rooms and told the barmen there was a fire. The supervisor said she then told the rest of her staff about the fire and warned them to “get out as quick as they could”.

She gave the key of the cloakroom to one of the girls and tried to go back into the Stardust to see where the rest of the staff were but couldn’t get in as she was stopped by the doorman.

Evidence was also heard from Belinda Pearse, who was a 17-year-old student working as a waitress in the Stardust at the time of the fire.

In her statement, which was read to the jury today by the court registrar, Pearse said she was at the rear of the hall at approximately 1:40am when she smelled something burning.

She said she told another waitress who was with her to run to the kitchen, as was the policy if anything went wrong in the club.

The former waitress agreed with Sean Guerin SC, representing a number of the families of the bereaved, that by this she meant if there was any trouble in the club in terms of disorder and had nothing to do with if there was a fire in the club.

She said staff had never been given any instruction on what to do in the event of a fire and never had any fire drills or fire training.

She said she tried to open the door at exit number six but could not open it. “The chain was off the door but was padlocked on to one half of it around the bar,” she said.

When she could not open the door, she went towards the kitchen and met another girl who worked with her. She said she grabbed her and ran towards the fire area where one shutter was up and they could see some barmen trying to put the fire out.

She said as she passed the fire she “froze” and Eamon Butterly told her to “get into the kitchen and get out”. When she got to the door of the kitchen, she said Teresa Marley asked her where her two daughters were.

Pearse said at this stage her own mother came out of the kitchen and told Marley her two daughters were outside and they all left at that stage.

“The lights were still on when we left and the smoke was getting thicker and blacker,” she said.

In a second statement, Pearse said as they were leaving the kitchen, Marley was “fumbling with the keys”, she had a big bag on her arm and was attempting to get the key into the outside of the door. The witness said she took the keys off her and locked the kitchen door from the outside. She said she was not involved in locking any other doors in the Stardust.

She agreed with Guerin that no one had identified to her the route she had taken out of the premises that night as a potential means of evacuating people from the premisses and so when she helped Marley to lock the door on the way out she was just doing what she normally did when leaving the premises after a night’s work.

“It never occurred to you or anyone else that it might not be an idea when there’s a fire in the premises not to lock that door that night?” Mr Guerin asked. “It obviously didn’t,” she replied.

The deposition of an unavailable witness, apprentice welder Harry Wade was also read into the record today. The inquest heard Wade’s brother, Paul lost his life in the Stardust fire.

In the statement, Harry Wade said he attended the Stardust that night with a group of friends. He said he attend the Silver Swan pub where he had five or six pints and then he and some others discussed getting into the Stardust via exit six.

He said he and his friends went around the building to exit six and he put his fingers under the door and tried to pull it out but was unable to open it. Wade said he then decided to climb the drainpipe beside exit six and got up on the roof with the intention of looking for a skylight.

He said he and two others looked for a skylight to open but were unable to find one. They tried to open a window by lifting the lead, he said, but were unable to open it. He said while they were there they saw a garda car.

They got down off the roof and ran around into the queue for the Stardust. He said he got up to the door but the bouncer wouldn’t let him in because he had no shirt and tie.

Wade said he left the club and got home at about 12:15am. Between 4:30am and 5am he heard the radio and his parents talking about a fire in the Stardust.