A patron of the Stardust nightclub became emotional on Wednesday as she told an inquest how there was "pandemonium" as those who'd escaped the fire tried to help people who remained inside, before "everything just went quiet".
“The silence just went through everyone that was outside, the whole place just went deadly quiet, because the hands disappeared and the shouting stopped, and we knew what was basically happening inside,” Paula Toner told the jury.
The jury in the Dublin District Coroner’s Court on Wednesday also heard evidence from Paul Fitzmaurice, who said he was burnt by flames that came down from the ceiling, causing him to fall down a staircase into a hallway where people were “being crushed” as the main doors were closed.
Mr Fitzmaurice had been in the company of Mary and Martina Keegan and David Morton, three of the 48 young people who lost their lives when the fire swept through the Stardust in the early hours of February 14, 1981.
In his original statement, read into the record by the court registrar, Mr Fitzmaurice said that at around 1.30am, he saw the fire along the back row of seats in a portion of the nightclub that was previously shuttered off. When he saw the fire, he got up to leave the premises and as he approached the passageway leading to the main entrance, “panic broke out”. He said he went up the stairs of the hallway but was met by flames.
“The flames shot out on top of me. I immediately put my hands to my eyes, and it was then that I got burnt,” he said. He gave evidence that he was burnt on his face and both hands and his hair was singed.
“As a result of the burning, the skin was burnt on my face and hands, and I fell back down the stairs,” he said, adding that a taxi brought him to hospital with another injured youth.
In a second statement that was read into the record, Mr Fitzmaurice said that three or four weeks before the fire, he had been sitting in the west alcove of the Stardust when he noticed it was very hot, and he had to remove his jacket, jumper and tie.
'Unusual' heat
In response to questions from a member of the coroner’s legal team, Gemma McLoughlin-Burke BL, Mr Fitzmaurice, who was 16 at the time, confirmed that the heat he felt that night weeks before the fire was “unusual”.
“On a couple of occasions going to the bar, it was a relief to go out of the west alcove,” he said.
He said that on the night of the fire, he went into the passageway leading to the main exit, where there were a lot of people. He said that the panic started when the lights went out, and everyone was “being crushed” because there were so many people in there.
“My worry was not of the fire, it was of being crushed, there were a lot of people in there screaming. The doors were closed, and nobody could move anywhere and as people were coming into the hallway, we were getting pushed and squeezed further and further,” he said.
“I went up the stairs to the side of the hallway to get out of the crush. It was pitch black, and when I turned around, I saw orange flames coming down from above towards me. I put my hands over my face, then the thick black smoke started to fill the hall,” he said.
Mr Fitzmaurice said that by the time he got to his feet, “it seemed the doors just opened” and he was “carried out by the force of people leaving”.
“I didn’t see them being opened, I just felt the surge of people moving out,” he said.
Flames from above
In response to a question from the coroner, Dr Myra Cullinane, Mr Fitzmaurice confirmed that the flames he encountered going up the stairs were coming from above and down towards him.
“I had time to put my hands over my face. They were quite strong flames, and they didn’t come in the inner doors, they definitely came down from the ceiling area,” he said.
In response to questions from Des Fahy KC, representing ten of the families of the victims including Mary and Martina Keegan and David Morton, Mr Fitzmaurice confirmed that the source of the flames he encountered was the ceiling above him on the first landing. He said he believed these flames were stronger than the flames he had initially seen in the west alcove.
“They burnt my hands and face, and my forward motion made me fall down the stairs,” he said.
The jury also heard evidence from Carmel Richardson, whose original statement was read into the record by the court registrar. In the statement, Ms Richardson said that when she saw the fire by looking under the curtain of the partitioned area, “the flames were about four feet high”.
In response to questioning by Ms McLoughlin-Burke, Ms Richardson, who was 17 at the time, said that once she got outside and saw people starting to come out with “smoke on their faces”, there was a realisation that the situation was bad.
“Then one of the exits really flung open and you could get this sense of urgency and panic,” she said.
'Fireball'
The jury also heard evidence from Paula Toner, who was 17 at the time. In her original statement, Ms Toner said that on the night of the fire, she exited through the front door.
“I could see fellas and girls banging at the windows of the toilets. A couple of fellas got up on the windows on the outside and broke the glass of the windows. I could see people’s hands sticking out through the window. Somebody tied ropes around the bars of the toilet window and tied the ropes onto a white van, and they tried to pull the bars off with the van, but the bars didn’t come off,” she said.
In response to questioning by Ms McLoughlin-Burke, Ms Toner said that she saw “a fireball going across the ceiling” and then the smoke started. She said that when the lights went out in the hallway, it was “horrible”.
“It was just like a crush, people were falling and helping people up,” she said.
Ms Toner said that only the left-hand side of the main entrance was open initially, then someone kicked the other door out and “people just kind of fell out”. She said that outside, some people broke the glass in the toilet windows and were shouting at the people inside, who were putting their hands out, and the people outside were telling those inside to put their heads down the toilets.
“There was pandemonium, and then everything just went quiet. The silence just went through everyone that was outside, the whole place just went deadly quiet, because the hands disappeared and the shouting stopped, and we knew what was basically happening inside,” said Ms Toner, who became emotional during this portion of her evidence.
The evidence of an unavailable witness, Martin Dowling, was read into the record by a member of the coroner’s legal team, Mark Tottenham BL. In his statement, Mr Dowling said he saw flames “burst out all over the dance floor”. Mr Dowling said that the door leading to the outside was closed and there were around 60 people trapped in the hallway. He said that a number of people started breaking down the door and there was complete panic as most of the people were choking with the smoke.
The inquest continues on Thursday in the Pillar Room of the Rotunda Hospital.
