Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

For young Dubliners in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Stardust Ballroom was the place to be. It was a huge venue that hosted cabarets, concerts and discos at weekends. Such was its popularity that you could get a bus from the quays in the city centre directly to the nightclub in Artane. With three bars, a stage and a large dance floor, it was a wonderland for night-time revellers. At capacity, it held close to 1,500 people. It was a goldmine. It hosted names such as Joe Dolan, Dickie Rock, Cliff Richard, the iconic Thin Lizzy and even U2, so young people would flock there to sing and dance their hearts out, forget the cares of the world and have the craic with their friends. For a generation, the Stardust Ballroom was a place of excitement, fun and the endless possibilities of a night out.

On 13 February 1981, hundreds of young people headed to the Stardust for a St. Valentine's dance. They would have done all of the things young people do getting ready for a big night out - blared the music in their bedrooms, picked out the clothes to look their best in, got the hair just right and made sure they had enough money in their pockets so the night would be all that it could be. It was a Friday night in Dublin on a St. Valentine's weekend. They were young and full of life and the world was their oyster.

As they hurried out their front doors, you can imagine their casual farewells: "See you in the morning"; "Don’t be worrying"; "Yes, I have a key"; "Leave the light on so I can let myself in later"; "Don't wait up"; "Love you, Ma"; and "Love you, Da." For 48 of these young people, this was the last time they would say goodbye to their mother, their father and their family, and they did not know it. These 48 young people, who were so full of life and so full of love, went out to enjoy a dance and never came home.

The Stardust was busy that night. A big attraction was the dance competition, which was won by Errol Buckley. His brother Jimmy, bursting with pride, jumped up on the stage to hug him when his name was announced. It was the last happy moment they would have together. A little after 1.30 a.m., a fire was spotted in the west alcove of the ballroom. What initially appeared to be a manageable fire quickly escalated out of control. Staff tried to tackle the blaze with fire extinguishers but to no avail. It spread at a terrifying pace throughout the club, fuelled by the PVC-coated polyester fabric on the seating and the highly flammable carpet tiles on the walls. Survivors recalled the inferno looking like a monster, a living thing coming after you with a frightening ferocity.

As the heat rose and the fire spread, confusion reigned for people who had no time to grasp the horrifying scene that engulfed them. The fire melted material on the ceiling, which then dripped onto the crowd. A huge cloud of thick, black, poisonous smoke enveloped everyone. People collapsed because they simply could not breathe, and then came a massive bang. The lighting in the nightclub failed. Darkness. Mass panic. People rushed towards the exit in a desperate bid to escape. The section of the crowd that rushed for the main exit was carried along in a crushing sea of desperation. Only one door of the main exit was open. The other had to be kicked open. Some people lost their footing as they reached for air and to escape. Antoinette Keegan, whose sisters Martina and Mary were killed in the fire, said:

I was on the ground, couldn’t get up, with my sisters. We were all holding one another’s hands. It was just like a fireball that came down and it was coming towards us. I remember putting my hands over my head. My last words I ever remember saying in there before I lost consciousness was: ‘Oh God help us.’

Those who tried to escape through the fire exits found them chained and padlocked shut. Windows were blocked with metal grilles and steel plates, making escape impossible. Those who ran into the toilets remained trapped inside the nightclub even as people outside tried to help them get out. They tried to remove the metal grilles with sledgehammers and axes but they would not budge. Firefighters, who first arrived at the scene at 1.49 a.m., tried to pull them down with a chain attached to a fire engine but they would not budge. Many of those trapped inside ran back in the direction of the blaze and smothering black smoke. They could not find an escape route. Time ran out. In less than half an hour, the fire had ripped through the entire ballroom, and then the screams inside stopped. Silence.

As Artane and the city of Dublin slept their way into St. Valentine's Day, innocence died with those young lives taken in the Stardust - with those young people so brutally injured in the Stardust. The news of the fire and fatalities had spread through the early morning. Families gathered at the local Garda station desperately seeking information about their loved ones. They were told to get the bus – to get the bus to the hospital or the morgue. This callousness set the tone for the 43 years of disrespect and contempt that these families would face. Families waited and waited for news, waited and waited for their loved ones to be identified.

They waited in pain and in agony for days. The families of five victims would have to wait until 2007 for their loved ones to be identified. Some families were handed a body bag with just a number tag on it. There were given no say on the graveyard in which their loved ones were buried, no say in the choice of undertaker, no support and no counselling. Traumatised families had to rely on each other for comfort and help.

As the families suffered this cruelty, the big lie was already in motion, spreading as fast as the fire itself. The big lie was that the Stardust fire was caused by arson. The nation's newspaper headlines screamed "Arson". It was a lie repeated over and over again. This smeared and criminalised the victims and survivors, suggesting that one of their number was responsible. It was a lie that devastated families and further traumatised survivors. To this day, those families and survivors still ask who crafted that lie, who spun it, who spread it and why. What was their motive and who were they protecting? Forty-three years on and they still do not have the answers to those questions.

In November 1981, the original tribunal, presided over by the former Chief Justice, Mr. Justice Ronan Keane, concluded that the fire was probably caused by arson. The big lie then became the State's official position. One survivor described to me her experience of that tribunal as aggressive and hostile, how she was cross-examined by eight different barristers, and how she felt bullied and intimidated. She was a traumatised survivor of the Stardust inferno and she was 18 years old. The arson lie would remain on the public record for decades. If the Keane tribunal compounded the arson lie, then the compensation scheme that followed compounded the State's utter contempt for the families.

Families were forced to sign non-disclosure agreements. Families were threatened that they would lose their homes and be cast into poverty if they sought an independent legal route. This is how the State behaved towards families who had suffered enormous loss and incalculable grief. The lives of victims' families were literally destroyed by the Stardust fire; destroyed lives of mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, friends, and a child. Gertrude Barrett, the mother of Michael Barrett, who was 17 when he was killed in the Stardust, powerfully summed up the impact on her family and others:

Like a tornado [she said], the Stardust fire ripped through the core of our beings, wreaking havoc and utter devastation in its wake, leaving nothing untouched, be it our homes, our lives, our relationships, our education, our future, our outlook on life, in fact our everything, nothing was ever the same again and changed forever as we knew it.

I had only seventeen and a half years of 'normality'/regular family life, my youngest son had ten years, my middle son had fourteen and my daughter had sixteen years; no matter how long my children live, their lives as they knew it, ended at ages 10, 14 and 16. The rest of their rearing years were done through a sea of tears, unimaginable grief, sadness, sorrow and an untold amount of emotional pain.

Others have spoken so bravely of family members falling into addiction, depression, illness and health complications because they simply could not cope with the weight of the grief and loss. So many parents went to their graves without having the truth about the deaths of their child acknowledged. They died without the comfort of vindication and yet, incredibly, the families kept going.

The seeds of this extraordinary resilience were planted by John Keegan, who established the Stardust Victims Committee in 1985. John would die the following year on the same day he lost his Supreme Court case for personal injuries from the deaths of his daughters Mary and Martina in the Stardust. The ruling stood in sharp contrast to the more than half a million pounds in legal compensation paid to the owner of the Stardust following the original tribunal. One law for the rich, another for ordinary people; a tale as old as time that still holds true today.

For decades the families and campaigners pushed for a new inquiry and were obstructed by the State every step of the way. Instead of backing and delivering a new inquiry, governments continued to circle the wagons. In 2007, families were forced to withdraw from a Government-established review of new information because the chair, John Gallagher SC, had represented gardaí at the original tribunal. It is still mind-blowing that this would happen in the first place. In 2009, when the Coffey review finally ruled that there was no evidence that the fire was caused by arson, still even then the Government refused to establish a new inquiry. Truth and justice were swept under the carpet.

In 2017, following a review of new evidence compiled by the families, Mr. Justice Pat McCartan failed to recommend a new inquiry. After 36 years of fighting for truth and justice, no new inquiry was again the response of the State to people it should have moved heaven and earth to vindicate. And yet, a year later, a chink of hope cut through the darkness. The families discovered new evidence with which to petition the Attorney General for a new inquest. In 2019, following a submission made on behalf of the families by Phoenix Law, the then Attorney General, Seamus Woulfe, announced that a new inquest would be held into the Stardust fire. The light at the end of a very dark, long tunnel grew brighter, but once again the contempt of the State towards the families came to the surface. After 43 years of struggle, the State had attempted to exclude elderly parents of victims from access to legal support and to that very inquest. Families had to fight to ensure inquest jurors were selected in a transparent way and would have their incomes protected. More obstruction, more disrespect and more contempt - consistent behaviours that spanned more than four decades. At each and every turn the State abused its power to bully, intimidate, pressure and coerce heartbroken mothers, grieving fathers and devastated families. Instead of the State standing shoulder to shoulder with the Stardust families, it lined up against them again and again. The State placed so little or no value on the lives of 48 working-class young people that were snuffed out in the Stardust ballroom. To the powerful, these young people and their families did not matter, and that is the cold, hard truth.

This travesty happened on the watch of successive governments, taoisigh and Ministers for Justice. The hope of governments was that the families would eventually stop, eventually shut up, eventually give up and eventually go away. Those governments forgot one very important thing. You do not mess with Dublin ma's; you do not mess with Dublin da's. You do not mess with Irish mammies, daddies and families, not when they are fighting for justice for their children because you will lose and they will win, even if it takes them 43 long years. They will win. When they know they have right on their side, ordinary people keep going, and that is a lesson that those in power would do very well to remember.

Today, finally, the State apologises for all of it because the families of the Stardust victims did not stop.

They did not shut up. They did not give up. They did not go away. They are here today in the Public Gallery of the Dáil and they are here in victory. I want to say this to you: to the ordinary people of Ireland, your loved ones always mattered. The ordinary people of Ireland were always on your side, always had your backs, mourned with you, shed tears with you. They saw your suffering and they never abandoned you. They never forgot what you had lost. The late lamented and indomitable Charlie Bird told your story with passion and grace and he supported you every step of the way. Our great national bard, Christy Moore penned and sang your soft, beautiful anthem for justice. It called out the powerful and named the crocodile tears, and "They Never Came Home" has rung out powerfully wherever people gather for a sing-song now, and it always will. The inspiration you provided for over 40 years and the solidarity of the people, that sense of community, that is the real Ireland, not the bitter contempt inflicted upon you by those who should have upheld your rights. Inniu, faoi dheireadh, gabhann an Stáit a leithscéal le teaghlaigh na ndaoine a maraíodh go neamhdhleathach sa tine Stardust agus leo siúd a tháinig slán. Ar feadh 43 bliain, chuir an Stáit agus Rialtais i ndiaidh a chéile bac romhaibh gach uile uair, ach rinne sibh cinnte gur tháinig an fhírinne chun solais.

When the verdict came through last Thursday, it confirmed what the people of Ireland already knew: unlawful killing. Unlawful killing 48 times. It was not arson. None of the young people who went to the Valentine's dance were responsible. Now the big lie that has cast a shadow over your lives since 13 February 1981 has been lifted once and for all. The Stardust fire robbed your families of a lifetime of happiness. It broke the heart of this city and took the breath of the nation. For 43 years, successive governments obstructed the revealing of truth. Justice was kept out of reach for those left to bear unimaginable loss. Birthdays, Christmases, christenings, weddings - more than four decades of family occasions with the trauma of that fire in Artane running through them. So this moment, this victory, this vindication is first and foremost for those unlawfully killed, for the survivors, for the courageous families who have lived for years with the pain of the lies, with the ghosts of unanswered questions and with the sorrow of the empty chair. The Buddhists say three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon and the truth. For the 48 young people who never came home, finally the truth is revealed. For the survivors who have endured a lifetime of suffering, finally the truth has prevailed and you, their families, brought the truth home for them. Now, let justice flow like a river.

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