Fruitless attempts to remove metal bars from windows, using rope and a van, where people were trapped inside the Stardust nightclub as it became engulfed in flames in 1981, were described at inquests on Wednesday.
Paula Toner, who was 17 at the time of tragedy described harrowing scenes outside the north Dublin nightclub in which 48 people, aged 16 to 27, died in a fire in the early hours of February 14th, 1981.
She told Dublin Coroner’s Court when she saw a fire on seats in the club she made her way towards the main exit with her friend. There was no panic initially, she said.
“In the hallway ... when the lights went out it was horrible. It was just like a crush and nobody could kind of see. People were falling and pulling people up.”
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She said the left half of the main exit, which appeared to locked, exacerbating the over-crowding in the hall, was kicked out. “We all just kind of pushed forward then.”
She I stood near the front exit. “I could see fellas and girls banging on the windows ... A couple of fellas got on the windows on the outside and broke the glass. I could see people’s hands sticking out through the window.
“Somebody tied ropes around the bars of the windows and tied the ropes to a white van and tried to pull the bars. The bars didn’t come off.”
She became upset when a photo of the front of the venue was displayed, showing windows to the cash-office, a storeroom and the sealed-shut toilets windows.
“People standing at the windows were shouting to the people inside to put their hands out ... that the ambulance and fire brigade was coming and then ... everything just went quiet and the silence just went through everyone that was outside.
“The whole place just went dead quiet and the hands disappeared and the shouts stopped.”
The fire brigade arrived soon after and firemen were “trying to keep everyone back” as they tried to re-enter the building to get to “loved ones”, said Ms Toner.
Paul Fitzmaurice, a 16 year-old apprentice butcher in Superquinn supermarket in the Northside Shopping Centre at the time, told the inquests he had gone to the Stardust weekly for about six months and “never had any difficulty” getting in.
That night he was there with a large group of friends, many of whom worked in Superquinn or the shopping centre, including three who died – Mary Keegan who worked in RTV rentals, her sister Martina (16) and David Morton (19), a trainee-manger in Superquinn.
Mr Fitzmaurice described seeing the fire in the west alcove and deciding to leave.
“When I went into the hallway and the lights went out that’s when the panic started ... We were being crushed because there were so many people in there .. My worry was not the fire, but being crushed.”
Asked what was causing the crush he said: “The doors were locked and nobody could go anywhere. As more people were coming in then to the hallway we were getting crushed and squeezed further and further.”
He went up the stairs in the hall to the first landing, saying this was “instinct”. However, when he turned he saw “orange flames coming down towards me,” he said. “I had my hands up over my face to protect my face.” He suffered burns to his face and hands.
“I fell down the stairs I was trampled on and by the time I got to my feet ... it seemed the doors opened and I was kind of carried out by the force of people leaving.”
He did not see how the doors opened or who opened them, he said.
William Bassett, a 29 year-old secondary schoolteacher at the time, gave evidence of being in the Silver Swan bar – part of the Stardust venue, some weeks before the disaster. He saw what he described as an “expensive” 8mm metal chain wrapped at least five times around panic-bars and padlocked. He said he reported this to an associate in Dublin City Council’s dangerous buildings section.
