Bodies fused together in death: How Stardust was seared into Irish consciousness
It was a night of giddy teenage romance that suddenly turned into Ireland’s worst ever fire disaster. The Stardust inferno killed 48 young people, injured hundreds more and led to a decades-long search for answers and justice.
Around 800 youngsters had made their way to the Stardust, a nightclub housed in a converted factory in the north Dublin suburb of Artane, on the night of 13 February 1981.
An evening of dancing and drinking on the eve of Valentine’s Day was promised. There was even a dancing competition.
Seventeen-year-old Marie Kennedy from nearby Kilbarrack was among the partygoers. “Disco dancing was her really big thing,” recalled her sister Michelle.
“She loved the Bee Gees, The Jackson 5, Leo Sayer and Abba. Her love of music and dancing was the reason she was in the Stardust on that night – she wanted to see the dancing competition.”
George O’Connor was among the 48 young people who didn’t make it.
George O’Connor was also 17. His mother ironed his shirt while George got his hair just right. His sister Donna remembers “critiquing his outfit and telling him no girl would ask him to dance dressed like he was”.
The night of revelry was passing unremarkably until the small hours of Valentine’s Day.
Suddenly, at around 1.40am, a fire was spotted in a sectioned-off area of the ballroom known as the west alcove.
Witnesses remember hearing a bang
As the alarm was raised, the fire spread at a terrifying pace.
The DJ halted the music and asked people to evacuate. Witnesses remember hearing a bang, and the power failed.
Family members of victims of the Stardust tragedy along with supporters arriving at the Rotunda Foundation in Dublin for the 15th pre-inquest hearing in 2022. Pic: PA
As panicked patrons fought to find exits, molten ceiling material showered down on them in the darkness, which was filling with noxious smoke and fumes.
Survivors reported seeing exit doors chained and locked, adding to the chaos.
The inquest heard that most of the victims were already dead by the time the first fire engines arrived at the scene. The firefighters found unimaginable carnage; heaps of bodies and body parts.
Fireman James Tormey entered the club to find a “massive glow with intense heat”, and his ears started to burn as they weren’t covered by his equipment.
He found a man’s torso clad in a red jumper near one of the exit doors. He was “just two or three steps” from safety, the firefighter told the inquest.
‘They were trying to comfort each other before their demise’
Mr Tormey also discovered the bodies of two young people “arms around each other and the bodies were fused together as one”. He said he believed they were “trying to comfort each other before they met their demise”.
Another firefighter, Noel Keegan, saw six to eight bodies piled on top of each other in the toilets. Another was inside an exit, still on fire.
He remembered another body near the toilets appeared to have been trodden on.
“It was burnt beyond recognition and the intestines were showing,” he said.
A fleet of ambulances and taxis took the dead and dying to several Dublin hospitals, which were in danger of becoming overwhelmed by the casualties.
Marie Kennedy and George O’Connor were among the 48 who did not make it. It was soon clear that this was a tragedy unlike anything Ireland had seen.
Compensation payout for owners infuriated relatives
The demand for answers started immediately. Later in 1981, a tribunal found no definitive origin for the fire, but that the “probable cause” was arson. This infuriated survivors and relatives of the dead, who saw it as victim-blaming.
And so a long campaign began. The finding of arson not only protected the nightclub’s owners, the Butterly family, from any criminal charges or civil lawsuits, but also entitled them to compensation.
They were awarded IR£581,000 from a Dublin court in 1983.
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The Stardust families were enraged, but it took until 2009 for a new independent review to finally dismiss arson as a cause.
That was one victory, but fresh inquests remained elusive. After years of pressure and lobbying, a new inquest into the Stardust deaths was eventually ordered in September 2019, but agonisingly for the families, didn’t get under way until 2023.
At an anniversary event in 2022, Samantha Mangan, whose mother Helena was killed, told Sky News that the new inquest couldn’t come soon enough.
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She said: “It’s like a brick, it’s killing me. It feels like there’s a chain around my neck. I can’t move forward until I find out what happened to her and why she didn’t come home.”
Scar on the city
Now, after nearly a year of hearings and 373 witnesses, the bereaved families are at the end of the inquest process.
In the decades since the inferno claimed their loved ones, the word Stardust has become synonymous in Ireland with tragedy and injustice on a massive scale.
Much like “Hillsborough” on Merseyside, or “Grenfell” in more recent times, the mere mention of “Stardust” can evoke pain and anger in Dublin – the mass death of innocents, exacerbated by an exhausting battle for answers by those left behind, who perceive an ingrained socioeconomic bias against their cause.
Time will tell if that scar on the city’s story will now begin to fade.
Those who never came home – some of the Stardust victims:
Caroline McHugh was 17 when she lost her life in the Stardust disaster.
Caroline McHugh (17): A lover of singing, swimming and Enid Blyton books, Caroline’s parents allowed her to skip a family wedding in Manchester to stay in Dublin and go to the dancing competition in the Stardust, a decision which has haunted them ever since.
Phyllis and Maurice McHugh were “advised not to see the remains because of severe burns and that she had no hair, was unrecognisable and unidentifiable.
“We were informed that Caroline had been bagged and tagged as number six.”
‘Michael was always smiling and had an infectious laugh’, his mother recalled.
Michael Barrett (17): “Michael was always smiling and had an infectious laugh”, recalled his mother Gertrude, who was “catapulted into unimaginable grief and sorrow.”
She spent four days at the morgue. “Michael would be the last identified victim of the Stardust… as a family we will never recover.”
Caroline Carey was described by her sister Maria as ‘our beautiful, bubbly, witty Caroline’.
Caroline Carey (17): “Our beautiful, bubbly, witty Caroline is gone”, said her sister Maria. “While watching news reports on TV, we saw Caroline being carried out in the arms of a fireman.
“He placed her down and tried to resuscitate her, but it was too late. There wasn’t a mark on her. Even her nails were perfect.”
From Belfast, Jim Millar was encouraged to move to Dublin by his father to escape the devastation of The Troubles.
Jim Millar (21): From Belfast, Jim was encouraged to move to Dublin by his father to escape the devastation of The Troubles.
“Our dad blamed himself for Jim’s death”, said his sister Laura.
“Maybe seeing justice being done will help a little, but it’s been a long time coming. Too long. Maybe then, they all can rest in peace at last.”
Israel’s defence minister has threatened to “take whatever measures necessary” to stop an aid boat carrying Greta Thunberg from reaching Gaza.
The climate campaigner, 22, is one of a dozen activists aboard the Madleen, which set sail from Sicily last Sunday on a mission aiming to break Israel‘s sea blockade.
The activists have said they plan to reach Gaza‘s territorial waters as early as Sunday to deliver humanitarian aid.
But in a post on X, Israel’s defence minister Israel Katz said he has instructed the IDF to prevent the vessel reaching shore and to “take whatever measures necessary”.
Addressing Thunberg and the other activists, he said: “You should turn back – because you will not reach Gaza.”
He wrote: “I have instructed the IDF to act so that the “Madeleine” hate flotilla does not reach the shores of Gaza – and to take any means necessary to that end.
“To the anti-Semitic Greta and her fellow Hamas propaganda spokespeople, I say clearly: You should turn back – because you will not reach Gaza.
“Israel will act against any attempt to break the blockade or assist terrorist organizations – at sea, in the air and on land.”
Latest known position of the vessel
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Why is Greta sailing to Gaza?
Rima Hassan, a French member of the European Parliament, who is of Palestinian descent, is also on the boat, which is operated by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition.
She has been barred from entering Israel because of her opposition to Israel’s policies towards Palestinians.
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Israel started allowing some basic aid into Gaza last month after a three-month total blockade aimed at pressuring Hamas and preventing the group from importing arms.
But humanitarian workers have warned of famine unless there is an end to the blockade and the 20-month war, which was ignited by the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 Oct 2023.
An attempt last month by Freedom Flotilla to reach Gaza by sea failed after another of the group’s vessels was attacked by two drones while sailing in international waters off Malta.
The group blamed Israel for the attack, which damaged the front section of the ship.
A British surgeon has told Sky News she has never treated or seen anyone in a Gaza hospital in military uniform – and the only people she has seen with weapons are the IDF.
Dr Victoria Rose, a NHS plastic surgeon who has experience working in Gaza, said conditions there are now the worst they’ve ever been.
“There’s been a real escalation in the bombing campaign,” she told Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips.
“The population is on their knees.”
Dr Victoria Rose in Gaza
Hospitals in Gaza have frequently come under Israeli military (IDF) fire – and sometimes find themselves besieged – in the ongoing war following Hamas’s October 2023 attacks on Israel.
Medical facilities are usually protected during conflicts under international law, but Israel has repeatedly claimed that Hamas uses them for command centres.
Asked about Israel’s allegations, Dr Rose said: “I’ve never treated or seen anyone – in any of the hospitals that I’ve worked in – in military uniform or with a weapon.
“The only people I’ve ever seen in Gaza with military uniforms and weapons are the IDF.”
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Palestinians ‘shot while getting food’
Dr Rose told Sky News about the impact of the war on hospital staff: “Lots of my Palestinian colleagues were telling me that they would rather die than carry on with this war.”
It comes as a controversial humanitarian organisation backed by Israel and the US said it did not distribute any food in Gaza on Saturday, accusing Hamas of making threats that “made it impossible” to operate. Hamas denied the claims.
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UN: 500,000 are food insecure in Gaza
The Israeli blockade on aid going into Gaza has severely affected the population, she said, leaving them malnourished and without the nutrients they need.
Speaking about her last visit to a hospital in the enclave, she said: “Infection rates were soaring… We were seeing a lot of avoidable deaths, a lot of small children dying from sepsis that would have been prevented if they’d been in in the Western world.”
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Despite a limited lifting of the blockade by Israel – the head of the UN called it a “teaspoon” – the aid situation in Gaza remains dire.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which is endorsed by Israel and the US, took over responsibility for distributing aid in Gaza, but has been criticised for lack of experience, organisation and faces allegations of assisting in ethnic cleansing by luring Palestinians to the south of the enclave if they want food.
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Why is Greta sailing to Gaza?
The Hamas-run Gaza government media office said on Saturday the GHF operation has “utterly failed on all levels” and that Hamas was ready to help secure aid deliveries by a separate long-running UN-led humanitarian operation.
A Hamas source told Reuters the group’s armed wing would deploy snipers on Sunday to prevent armed gangs looting food shipments.
World
Colombian presidential candidate Miguel Uribe Turbay in ‘critical condition’ after attempted assassination – as 15-year-old suspect arrested
A 15 year-old-boy has been arrested after a Colombian senator running to be the country’s next president was shot and “critically” injured at a campaign rally in Bogota, authorities have said.
Senator Miguel Uribe Turbay, 39, was targeted during the campaign event in a park in the Fontibon area of the Colombian capital, according to the Attorney General’s office.
He suffered two gunshot wounds when armed assailants shot him from behind and appeared to be bleeding from his head as he was helped by aides and people in the crowd, in a video posted on social media.
According to a medical report at the Santa Fe Foundation hospital, he was admitted there in a “critical condition” and is still undergoing a “neurosurgical and peripheral vascular procedure”.
Opposition senator Miguel Uribe Turbay on 13 May. Pic: AP
His wife Maria Claudia Tarazone wrote on X that he is “fighting for his life” and urged Colombians to pray for him.
Two other people were injured but the nature of their injuries has not been made public.
A suspect, a 15-year-old boy, was arrested at the scene with a firearm and is being treated for a leg injury, police chief General Carlos Triana said.
The government is offering a $730,000 (£540,000) reward for information and President Gustavo Petro said the investigation will focus on who ordered the attack.
“For now there is nothing more than hypothesis,” he said, adding that failures in security protocols would also be looked into.
People gather outside the hospital where Mr Uribe Turbay is ‘fighting for his life’. Pic: Reuters
Mr Uribe Turbay, who announced his presidential bid for the right-wing Democratic Center Party in March, was accompanied by a team of 21 people at the time of the shooting, his office said, including councilman Andres Barrios.
He was hoping to run in the presidential elections taking place on 31 May next year – and succeed Mr Petro, the country’s first leftist leader.
His mother, who was a journalist, was kidnapped and killed in 1991 during one of the most violent periods in Colombia’s history.
Forensic investigators at the scene of Mr Uribe Turbay’s shooting in Bogota. Pic: AP
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His party described it as an “unacceptable act of violence”, while US secretary of state Marco Rubio condemned it in the “strongest possible terms”.
Writing on X, Mr Rubio also urged Colombia’s current president to “dial back the inflammatory rhetoric and protect Colombian officials”.
Police outside the hospital where Mr Uribe Turbay is being treated. Pic: AP
Former Colombian president Alvaro Uribe, who is not related to Mr Uribe Turbay, said the gunman had “attacked the hope of the country, a great husband, son, brother, and a great colleague”.
He cancelled a planned trip to France due to the “seriousness of the events”, his office said in a statement.
Messages of support poured in from elsewhere in Latin America, with Chilean President Gabriel Boric saying: “There is no room or justification for violence in a democracy.”
Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa added: “We condemn all forms of violence and intolerance.”
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