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.”
Israeli strikes on Gaza killed at least 93 people and injured hundreds on Friday, according to local medics.
Heavy strikes were reported in the northern town of Beit Lahia and the nearby Jabalia refugee camp.
Israel said it had killed several militants in an observation compound.
Its forces also struck Khan Younis and the outskirts of Deir al Balah in southern Gaza.
Mourners at the Indonesian Hospital attend the funerals of people killed in Israeli attacks. Pic: Reuters
Officials at Gaza’s Indonesian Hospital said at least 66 bodies had been brought there, while 16 are said to have been taken to the Nasser Hospital further south.
More than 250 people have now been killed in Israeli strikes since Thursday, according to local health authorities.
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Moment of Israeli strike on house
Israel, which had dropped leaflets on Beit Lahia ordering residents to leave, said its airforce had struck more than 150 military targets across Gaza in recent days.
This week, Israel said it had bombed the European Hospital because it was home to an underground Hamas base, but expert analysis has cast doubt on its evidence.
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Displaced Palestinians fled Beit Lahia, in northern Gaza, on Friday. Pic: AP
Israeli tanks near the Israel-Gaza border on Thursday. Pic: Reuters
Tom Fletcher, head of the UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs, warned the Security Council this week it must “act now” to “prevent genocide” – a claim Israel vehemently denies.
Donald Trump spoke about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza as he wrapped up his trip to the Middle East.
In Abu Dhabi, the US president said: “We’re looking at Gaza, and we got to get that taken care of.
“A lot of people are starving, a lot of people. There’s a lot of bad things going on.”
Donald Trump was in Abu Dhabi on Friday as he wrapped up his regional visit. Pic: AP
While most of his four-day visit to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates focused on trade deals, he also chose to recognise the new government in Syria and urged Iran to engage in nuclear talks.
There had been hope Mr Trump’s visit could bring about a ceasefire deal or renewal of humanitarian aid to Gaza.
An Israeli aid blockade of the territory is now in its third month.
Israel says the blockade is to pressure Hamas to release the remaining hostages and that it won’t allow aid back in until a system is in place that gives it control over distribution.
Earlier this week, a new humanitarian organisation said it expected to begin operations before the end of the month after what it described as key agreements from Israeli officials.
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Hamas: ‘We believe Trump has done a lot of hard work’
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation – which has US backing – identified several US military veterans, former humanitarian coordinators and security contractors that it said would lead the delivery effort.
Many in the humanitarian community, including the UN, said the system does not align with humanitarian principles and will not be able to meet the needs of Gaza’s people.
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The war began when Hamas militants killed 1,200 people and took 251 hostages in the 7 October 2023 attack on southern Israel.
Israel has killed nearly 53,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at the start of May that Israel was planning an expanded offensive against Hamas as his cabinet approved plans that could involve seizing the entire Gaza Strip and controlling aid.
A defence official said at the time that it would not begin before President Trump finished his visit to the Middle East.
A wave of deadly strikes in northern Gaza has marked a significant escalation in Israel’s offensive.
The Israeli military (IDF) says it has struck “over 150 terror targets” across the Gaza Strip in the past 24 hours – an average of one airstrike every ten minutes.
At least 109 people have been killed in the strikes, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, bringing the total number killed this week to 284.
That number may rise further. On Friday morning, the director of Gaza City’s Al Shifa hospital told Al Jazeera that more than 250 people had been killed in the previous 36 hours alone.
Nurse and his family killed in strike
The impact of this new bombardment is cataclysmic, as this video of an Israeli airstrike in Jabalia, northern Gaza, verified by Sky News, shows.
Other videos show huge smoke clouds rising from airstrikes on residential neighbourhoods surrounding the city’s Indonesian Hospital.
The hospital’s director, Dr Marwan al Sultan, told Sky News: “There is a shortage of everything except death.”
Among those killed in Jabalia on Friday was 42-year old Yahya Shehab, a nurse for the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund (PCRF).
He was killed alongside his wife Tamara, 37, and their five children: Sarah, 18, Anas, 16, Maryam, 14, Aya, 12 and Abdul, 11.
Nurse Yahya Shehab, 42, was killed alongside his wife and five young children. Pic: PCRF
He is survived by his niece Huda, 27, a civil engineer, who lives nearby with her husband Ahmad Ngat, 31, and their two young sons, Mohammed, seven, and Yusuf, four.
Ahmad remembers Yahya as kind and generous, and that he would use his skills as a nurse to treat Mohammed and Yusuf whenever they were sick.
“His kids were great too,” Ahmad says. “May God have mercy on them.”
Operation Gideon Chariot
An Israeli official said Friday’s strikes were preparatory actions in the lead-up to a larger operation.
Earlier this month, Israel’s security cabinet approved “Operation Gideon Chariot” – a plan to “capture” all of Gaza and force its entire population to move to a small enclave in the southern Gaza Strip.
At the time, a defence official said the operation would go ahead if no hostage deal was reached by the end of US President Donald Trump’s visit to the Middle East. That visit ended on Friday, 16 May.
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Hamas had proposed releasing all hostages in exchange for a permanent end to the war. Last month, Hamas turned down Israel’s offer of a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the militant group laying down its weapons and releasing half the living hostages.
Finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, who sits in the security cabinet, said of Operation Gideon Chariot that Gaza would be “entirely destroyed”, and that its population will “leave in great numbers to third countries”.
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Fresh airstrikes hit Gaza
Ahmad says he is ready to leave Gaza with his family at the earliest opportunity.
“We want to live our lives,” he says.
Ahmad (C) with his wife Huda (R) and their son Mohammed (L). Pic: Ahmad Ngat
His wife Huda grieving the loss of her uncle Yahya, is seven months pregnant. The family are constantly struggling to find enough food for her and the children, he says.
“Unfortunately, she suffers greatly,” Ahmad says. “She developed gestational diabetes during this pregnancy.”
Israel has prevented the entry of all food, fuel and water since 2 March. On Monday, a UN-backed report warned that one in five people in Gaza were facing starvation.
Satellite imagery may show new aid hubs
Under new proposals backed by the US, Israel now intends to control the distribution of aid via private military contractors.
The proposals, set to start operating by the end of May, would see aid distributed from militarised compounds in four locations around the Gaza Strip.
Satellite imagery from recent weeks shows Israel has constructed four compounds which could be used for aid distribution.
Newly constructed compounds in Gaza, May 2025. Pics: Planet Labs PBC
Construction began in April and was completed by early May.
Three of these are clustered together in the southwest corner of the Gaza Strip, with one in the central Netzarim corridor.
None are located in northern Gaza, where Ahmad and Huda’s family live.
The UN has called this a “deliberate attempt to weaponise” aid distribution and has refused to participate.
The planned aid distribution system is being coordinated by a new non-profit, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which was set up in February in Switzerland.
Its board includes a former head of World Central Kitchen, as well as people with close ties to the US military and private military contractors.
Proposals drawn up by the GHF say the four planned aid distribution sites could feed around 1.2 million people, approximately 60% of Gaza’s population.
The GHF later requested that Israel establish additional distribution points.
Speaking to the UN Security Council on Tuesday, UN Relief chief Tom Fletcher said the plan “makes starvation a bargaining chip”.
“It is cynical sideshow. A deliberate distraction. A fig leaf for further violence and displacement,” he said.
Large areas of Gaza have already been razed in recent weeks, including vast tracts of the southern city of Rafah, where many had fled during the war’s early stages.
Sky News analysis of satellite imagery shows approximately two-thirds of Rafah’s built-up area (66%) has been reduced entirely to rubble, with buildings across much of the rest of the city showing signs of severe damage.
On Thursday, Human Rights Watch executive director Federico Borello said the UK and US have a duty, under the Genocide Convention, to “stop Israeli authorities from starving civilians in Gaza”.
He said: “Hearing Israeli officials flaunt plans to squeeze Gaza’s two million people into an even tinier area while making the rest of the land uninhabitable should be treated like a five-alarm fire in London, Brussels, Paris, and Washington.”
Israeli government spokesman David Mencer said on Friday that Israel’s new offensive is intended to secure the release of its hostages. “Our objective is to get them home and get Hamas to relinquish power,” he said.
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Russia and Ukraine failed to agree to a ceasefire in their first direct talks since 2022 – as European leaders called Moscow’s approach “unacceptable” after the discussions lasted less than two hours and Vladimir Putin stayed away.
The meeting in Istanbul, Turkey, was set up at short notice on President Putin‘s behest, but he declined a challenge from Volodymyr Zelenskyy to meet him in person and instead sent relatively junior representatives.
A source in the Ukrainian team told Sky News that Russia had threatened “eternal war” during the talks.
They said the Russians were not ready to talk about technical details of a ceasefire and were waiting for superiors to approve them.
Latest updates on Istanbul talks
Turkish foreign minister Hakan Fidan chairs a meeting between Ukrainian and Russian negotiators in Istanbul. Pic: Reuters
Both countries said they had agreed to trade 1,000 prisoners of war each in what would be the biggest such exchange yet of the conflict.
But Kyiv wants the West to impose tighter sanctions unless Moscow accepts a proposal from Donald Trump for a 30-day ceasefire.
President Zelenskyy said after the meeting that he had spoken to Mr Trump by phone – alongside Sir Keir Starmer and the leaders of France, Germany and Poland – who all met in Albania on Friday.
In a post on X, he said Ukraine was “ready to take the fastest possible steps to bring real peace” and that “tough sanctions must follow” if Russia continues to resist a month-long truce.
The Ukrainian delegation. Pic: Reuters
The Russian delegation. Pic: Reuters
Frustration over Russia‘s perceived stalling in holding serious negotiations was also clear from the European leaders gathered in Tirana.
“The Russian position is clearly unacceptable, and not for the first time,” said Sir Keir.
“So as a result of that meeting with President Zelenskyy and that call with President Trump we are now closely aligning our responses and will continue to do so.”
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The talks were held in Dolmabache Palace in Istanbul. Pic: AP
The UK prime minister said the no-show by Russia’s leader was “more evidence that Putin is not serious about peace” and has “been dragging his heels”.
NATO secretary-general Mark Rutte, who was also in Albania, said President Putin had made a “big mistake” by sending low-level delegates to Istanbul.
A list of representatives ahead of the meeting listed presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky, deputy foreign minister Galuzin Mikhail Yuryevich and deputy defence chief Alexander Fomin.
Ukraine’s delegation was led by defence minister Rustem Umerov.
President Zelenskyy had called the Russian team “a theatre prop” ahead of the summit in the Dolmabahce Palace.
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Ukrainian ‘despair’ over missing civilians
However, Turkey’s foreign minister heralded it as “an important day for world peace” and said Russia and Ukraine had agreed to swap 1,000 POWs each as a “confidence-building measure”.
Hakan Fidan shared a picture of the delegations and said they had “agreed to share with the other side in writing the conditions that would make it possible to reach a ceasefire”.
Russia’s Vladimir Medinsky said his team had “taken note” of the Ukrainian request for direct talks between Mr Putin and Mr Zelenskyy.
“We have agreed that each side will present its vision of a possible future ceasefire and spell it out in detail,” said Mr Medinsky.
Hopes ahead of the meeting were low after Mr Trump and his secretary of state, Marco Rubio, played down the prospect of meaningful progress.
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Trump on meeting Putin: ‘As soon as we can set it up’
The US president told reporters on Air Force One on Thursday “nothing’s going to happen until Putin and I get together”, while Mr Rubio said a “breakthrough” was unlikely until the US and Russian presidents meet.
No date for such a meeting has been proposed, but Mr Trump has said it will happen “as soon as we can set it up”.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that top-level talks were “certainly needed” but arranging it would take time.
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Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov was a notable absentee, despite attending Ukraine-focused talks with the US in Saudi Arabia in February.
Russia has so far failed to agree to a 30-day unconditional ceasefire – proposed by European leaders who have threatened Moscow with “massive” sanctions if it doesn’t sign up. The US also supports the plan.
The Kremlin has ambitions to keep swathes of Ukrainian land as part of any long-term truce, an idea that Kyiv firmly rejects.
Russia also wants an end to Ukraine’s NATO ambitions and a promise it will stay neutral.
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