Stardust families to recount 'queue for the morgue' in wake of fire tragedy for RTE documentary

A survivor of the blaze will recall how his parents located him in a hospital but didn't recognise him due to the extent of his injuries

Families of the Stardust victims will tonight recount the pain of identifying their loved ones’ remains and attending multiple funerals in the aftermath of the tragic blaze.

The relatives and survivors of the nightclub fire in 1981 also speak of their great hopes for the tribunal of inquiry in 1982 and of their huge disappointment at the verdict of “probable arson”.

The latest episode of the Stardust documentary also looks at the derisory offers of compensation from the State, and the communities’ reaction. The second part of the RTE series charts the aftermath of the tragedy and the official response as people began to ask why this happened and who should be held to account.

Jimmy Fitzpatrick, who was 16 when he was injured in the fire, tells how his parents searched to find him.

He said: “Mam and dad were going from hospital to hospital, but the nuns were frantic trying to give out the names and getting confused. They were looking for James Fitzpatrick where everyone knew me as Jimmy Fitzpatrick.

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“So, when they brought my mam and dad in to see me, my mam said, ‘That’s not Jimmy.’ She couldn’t recognise me. Like as I said, I was swelled up. But they bathed my eyes open and when I opened my eyes my mam goes, ‘That’s him.’ But a horrible thing for any parent to have to go through.

“And then you’re thinking, did we all make it? Did we all get out? And I wasn’t hearing any names and none of my friends were coming to see me.”

Pat Dunne’s brother Brian Hobbs was working in a hotel on the night of the fire but was allowed to finish early so he could support his friend in the dance competition at the Stardust. His relatives didn’t know he had gone.

The family didn’t find Brian in any of the hospitals, so were directed to try the morgue. Pat added: “There was a queue for the morgue... Peter [Pat’s brother] went up and down the rows a few times and then stopped on a bundle – there was the buckle of the belt and a wine-coloured V-neck jumper and I think a shoe – and then walked up and down again...

“[The garda] said, ‘I see you stopping at this particular bundle all the time,’ and Peter said, ‘Well that’s not Brian.’

“And he said, ‘Well do you recognise anything?’ and he said, ‘Yes, the belt he got for the birthday in Zurich and a piece of jumper and a piece of shoe.’

“They were searching for a person, rather than what was there, so the young guard then said to Peter, ‘I think you should settle for what’s there,’ and he rang me then and he said, ‘We found him, he’s here.’” Tonight’s episode will also show archive footage of the huge number of funerals in the northside of Dublin following the disaster.

The news that a tribunal of inquiry would be set up in its wake gave families hope initially. Pat added: “Because it was set up so quick and because of who it was set up by he was doing everything, and it was great.

“And he would get to the bottom of it and that’ll be fine and there was these you know, proper barristers and whatever it might be and they would handle it all and tell us what had happened at the end. The finding of probable arson was awful. Absolutely awful.

“It made people think then that who did this? It caused awful bad blood on the northside of town. That somebody maybe in your estate or your road had done this. So the blame was apportioned in the wrong direction.

“And a lot of people were regular ordinary people that accepted what they had found initially because they were experts you see, we weren’t.”

Jimmy added: “It was a mockery to Stardust victims and their families... to have a case saying probable arson, you can’t say probable arson. It’s either arson or it isn’t.”

After the tribunal, the Butterly family who owned the Stardust took a case against Dublin City Council and were awarded almost £600,000 in compensation.

Some of the families of those who died in the Stardust and those who were injured started taking legal cases against the State.

In response, the Government announced a compensation tribunal which offered cash but those who received it had to discontinue any legal actions.

Pat remembers: “Mam didn’t take it in the beginning. And she said one day, she said, ‘Should I take it?’ And Peter said, ‘Yeah, you need central heating, and you need new windows and the two of you can’t afford it.’

“So, we said, ‘Just go and take it and you can always say Brian’s money was comfort to you in that sense.’ So, she took it afterwards. So, for his life, there was £7,500.”

• The documentary series Stardust continues tonight at 9.35pm on RTE One and the RTE Player.

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