The truth about the Stardust fire

Exclusive – an unpublished report into the Stardust disaster claims the cause of the fire was not arson, as was concluded by the original inquiry in 1982. By Frank Connolly

Linda Bishop and her friend, Sandra Hutton, were dancing to a record called ‘Lorraine' when they noticed a fire in the west alcove of the Stardust nightclub in Artane on Valentine's night, 1981.

This was just minutes after they had noticed a sudden increase in temperature in the factory-turned-nightclub. Before getting up to dance, Linda Bishop had been sitting at a table with her friend, just below a grille in the ceiling. She began to feel warm, having earlier felt the venue to be cold during the February evening.

She said to Sandra that someone must have put the central heating on. As she got up to dance she checked her digital watch. It was 1.33am, just a few minutes before they saw the flames. The two women were among the lucky ones.

There were 840 patrons, mainly between the ages of 18 and 30, in the Stardust that night. Forty-eight never came home. A fire engulfed the 1,400-capacity premises, killing 44 people; four other victims died from burns and respiratory complications over the next agonising 25 days.

The fire left 214 people with injuries and 11 others permanently disabled or disfigured from burns. Many of those who escaped the inferno suffered psychiatric problems, including guilt associated with their survival after so many suffered death or serious injury.

For the survivors and the families of the victims, their hurt was compounded by another grievous injury – the conclusion of a judicial tribunal, published in June 1982, which found that one of their own had deliberately started the fire.

As revealed by a detailed forensic and technical report, which has been exclusively released to Village, the Stardust fire was not arson, as the tribunal concluded. It was far more probable that it was the direct result of an electrical fault in a lamp room which set fire to combustibles – including cooking oil, petrol-based polishes and detergents – along with other inflammables in an adjoining store room.

The sudden heat felt by Linda Bishop and her friend was a result of a fireball crossing the roof space of the building which, within minutes, had the false ceiling in flames and dropping balls of fire on the patrons below.

The flames she noticed in the west alcove were the fireballs hitting the seats, setting them alight and releasing black smoke and toxic fumes from the furniture, which added to the chaos and confusion.

As people headed for the exits, the lights went out and, while many managed to get out the front door, others were burned where they stood by the dropping fireballs, while still more were trapped in the toilets or at the chained or blocked exits.

A tribunal into how the fire started, chaired by Judge Ronan Keane, was held between April and November 1981. When she gave evidence at it, Linda Bishop did not realise the significance of her recollection. Neither did the assembled solictors and barristers representing the attorney general, Dublin Corporation, the next of kin of the dead and injured and the Butterly family from north Co Dublin, owners of the Stardust.

‘Nothing But the Truth: The Case for a New Public Inquiry' is a new report on the Stardust fire disaster. According to the report, submitted to the government by solicitor Greg O'Neill on behalf of the Stardust Victims' Justice Campaign in July 2006, the original inquiry was flawed in its main findings because the evidence it was given in relation to crucial facts was misleading.  

As well as Linda Bishop, two other witnesses who were outside the building gave evidence that they saw a fire in the roof space shortly after 1.30am. Taxi driver Robert O'Callaghan said he saw a red glow in the sky just after leaving a fare close to the nightclub. He checked his watch. It was 1.30am. Driving towards the Stardust, about 100 yards away, he saw flames “about the size of a house” above the building. Yet there was no mass exodus from the building at this stage.

“The clear inference to be drawn from this evidence is that the fire was well established in the roof space before it was observed inside the ballroom,” the new report states.

Alan Buffini, a post-graduate music student, gave the tribunal an even more precise time for when the fire started. He heard a crackling noise from his house at Maryfield Drive near the Stardust. He had just noticed the time was 1.38am. He left the room and went to the back door where he met a neighbour, Anthony Pasquetti, who was standing at the garage next door. He could see sparks and dense black smoke from the top of the Stardust building. When they got up on the garage roof there were large flames where the sparks had been.  

Another witness, Jimmy O'Toole, observed a fire in the roof space of the Stardust at 1.40am. The only conclusion from these observations was that the Stardust fire was well underway at 1.41am.

Yet the judicial tribunal concluded that the fire started at around 1.40am when flames were first noticed by Linda Bishop and others on the seats in the west alcove on the ground floor of the building.

It is evident the inquiry was seriously misled by evidence provided by witnesses from the Garda and the Forensic Science Laboratory who argued that the probable cause of the fire was by someone setting a match to seats in the west alcove, which was curtained off from the main dance floor. The conclusion has caused a lasting hurt to many thousands of people in the north-Dublin working-class communities of Artane, Coolock and surrounding areas.

The fundamental thrust of the tribunal inquiry was influenced from the start by a view expressed by British Fire Research Station consultants who visited the site 10 days after the fire and prepared a preliminary report for the tribunal of inquiry.

They were informed that the first sighting of the fire on the night of the disaster was of seats aflame in the west alcove. Crucially, they were only told of one possible fire load in the Stardust and that was the seating. Their investigation, therefore, centred on a possible electrical fault close to the seating in the west alcove, a dropped match or cigarette, or a deliberate arson by somebody setting fire to the seats. They were not told about an extensive fuel load in the store room beside the lamp room above the main bar.

Indeed, the tribunal hearings were further confused when conflicting evidence was given about the location of the store room in maps provided by the Garda mapping section. The tribunal was wrongly informed that the store room was on the ground floor “above the basement”. In fact, there was no basement and the store room was, as stated, above the ground floor adjacent to the lamp room and adjoining the roof space. Further, the main investigator from the Forensic Science Laboaratory, Michael Norton, and the key Garda investigator, Detective Garda Seamus Quinn concentrated their efforts on the west-alcove seating. They examined two electrical sockets close to the area and the immersion unit in the main bar. These were found to have been functioning properly on the night.

However, these two experts did not appear to give sufficient weight to a history of electrical faults in the lamp room over previous weeks and months, including incidents of smoke, excessive heat and sparks in the room.

In a report commissioned in 2003 by the families of the victims, consultant electrical engineer Patricia O'Carroll concluded that ignition by “an electrical fault cannot be ruled out”. She said it was “apparent that the modifications which were done to the original electrical distribution system downgraded the original system”.

“The removal of trunking lids, conduit end stops and box lids on the primary and secondary maintained lighting systems suggests shabby modifications and a possible misunderstanding of the function and regulations regarding these systems. It further suggests that the work was carried out by non-competent people,” Patricia O'Carroll wrote.

She also pointed out that the store room and lamp room were not separated by a block wall as required under fire regulations.

“Was the store room designed to store a large volume of flammable substances? Was the store room adequately ventilated and temperature-controlled? Were the electrical appliances rated for the environment in which they were located?” she asked. “It should be noted that this electrical installation would be considered sub-standard by today's standards and would not be licensed by the authorities.”

The failure to focus on the lamp room as the more likely source of ignition of the fire was compounded by the tribunal's delay in establishing the contents of the adjoining store room.

Although the tribunal began oral hearings in April 1981, it was not until 1 September that year that a list of the “approximate contents” of the store room was given to the inquiry by Kevans Solicitors, who were acting for the Butterlys.

These included large quantities of bleaches, brio wax, cans of brillo, aerosols, petrol-based waxes and polishes, as well as large boxes of napkins and kitchen towels.

Significantly, the list did not mention the presence of drums of cooking oil, although the tribunal was informed by witnesses who worked at the venue that large amounts of cooking oil were used because deep-fried sausages and chips were regularly dispensed to patrons.

Fire consultant Dr Robert Watt repeatedly told the judicial tribunal there was no evidence of any flammable liquids dripping from the roof space. He was clearly unaware of the location of the storeroom and its contents. As a result, the chairman may have been seriously misled by an expert witness.

Fire consultant Robin Knox, who provided evidence for the latest report which is currently under consideration by the government, disagreed with the key experts retained by the tribunal 25 years ago on the source of the fire.

“The experts should and ought to have sought knowledge of the nature and volume of the combustibles within the building... They appear to never have been made aware of the roof space and its voluminous combustible contents. The conflagration was developing in the store room. Linda Bishop felt the heat from the roof space via the extract grille (approximately above her head) following one of the first bursts/blasts of accelerant fuel igniting... the fire grew steadily in intensity and spread and sprayed burning (and unburnt) materials (liquids, pastes and solids) out of the store room area into the roof void, projected and/or flowing droplets dripped from the ceiling in the northwest corner of the west alcove down through the (repaired) ceiling joints and ignited the seats where the first flames became obvious to the patrons,” Knox reported.

“Rapidly and almost instantaneously the fire and smoke spread. A series of catastrophic events coincidentally occurred – the catalytic fresh oxygen (when the roof was penetrated)... the roof-void temperature rose rapidly... the asbestos sheeting cracked and disintegrated – the asbestos cement shards fell – the shards sheared down through and assisted the collapse of the suspended ceiling tiles and its grid – all down onto the remaining patrons,” he continued.

“The store contents ignited, placing the outbreak up into the ceiling void above the ballroom ceiling unseen and unheard by those within the noisy ballroom. There was a substantial volume of fire fuel stored in the store room to sustain and develop the outbreak of fire, whatever the cause of ignition. This fundamental fact was not considered by the tribunal or any of the other experts. The store-room contents evidence now available and the perusal of the vast volume of text and photographs clearly confirms that, generally, the above described chain of events occurred at the Stardust Ballroom on 14 February 1981,” Robin Knox concluded.

A further asssessment by another fire consultant, Tony Gillick, for the latest report set out newly-discovered facts which the Victims' Committee insists lay the basis for a new public inquiry into the tragedy.

“The store contents were in the roof space adjacent to the lamp room with no fire separation. There was no significant fire separation between the lamp room and the area of the bar under the ceiling. There was combustible desperation between the store and the rest of the roof void at the main bar. There was electrical overload in the lamp room.”

He said four common electrical causes of fire were present in the building, ie over-current, arcing, short-circuit or earth-leakage.

“In over-current, if slow heating takes place then any combustible material in the vicinty will give off combustible gases which when they reach ignition temperature will ignite,” Gillick said.

He said that in order to accept the tribunal's conclusion of arson started in the west alcove, the evidence of outside witnesses, of Linda Bishop and of other patrons would have to be ignored.

One must also ignore, he said, “the almost instant collapse of the ceiling when the fire reached it, the Garda reports on prior incidents in the lamp room, the progress of the fire from the lamp room to the store room and the non-collapse of the ceiling in the fire test”. (The test was carried out by experts for the tribunal.)

He pointed out that if there was an arsonist he chose to set the fire at the furthest point of possible escape and that he knew how to get the fire going, although the scientific testers for the tribunal did not.

Professor Michael Delichatsios, chair in Fire Dynamics at the University of Ulster also said that in his expert opinion the fire was not caused by arson. “It was initiated in the store room because sufficient fuel load existed there; the burn pattern indicated so and reports of overheated cables before the Stardust disaster caused concern.

“Subsequently it propagated to the west alcove before igniting the seats there by falling burning items. This behaviour is consistent with early observations (before the fast fire-spread period) of smoke and heat development from witnesses outside the building and inside the hall,” Delichatsios said.

Forsensic pathologist Derek Carson, who was also commissioned by the Victims' Committee, concluded that the injuries found on survivors were consistent with burning material falling from the roof.

“It seems clear that most of the deaths were due to a combination of irritant and toxic inhaled gases produced in the fire, and to the added effect of burning. In some cases the burns were the main factor, suggesting that these deceased persons had been enveloped in heat and burning material coming down through the suspended ceiling at a relatively early stage before significant inhalation of toxic and irritant gases,” Carson wrote.

“Escape from the premises was clearly hampered by the locked, apparently locked, or obstructed exits and also by the fact that the lighting failed at an early stage, added to by the smoke and fumes from the fire and the undoubted panic... All of these factors must have contributed to the number of patrons who failed to survive the fire and make good their escape.

“In view of the evidence which has emerged since the tribunal sat, the incorrect information given to the tribunal, and the feelings of the survivors and the relatives of the dead that aspects of the tragedy were not fully exposed and explained so that they remain unsatisfied, it would seem advisable that the matter be re-examined by further inquest and enquiry,” Carson concluded.

On 22 November, Bertie Ahern said he was waiting on government experts to assess the latest report, the contents of which have been largely outlined above, before he decides whether a new inquiry should be held into the causes of the Stardust fire. To the anger of the families, the experts include at least one official from the Forensic Science Laboratory who accepted the theory put to the tribunal that the fire was caused by an arsonist in the west alcove.

In a Dáil exchange, Labour Party leader Pat Rabbitte said the deaths of 48 people in the Stardust were a result of “corporate manslaughter” due to the breaches of fire regulations and the blocking of exits on the night.

As a result of the findings of the tribunal that the fire was caused by arson, the owners of the Stardust obtained over £700,000 in compensation from the state. The families of the dead and the survivors were given paltry payments in the months and years after the fire.

A memorial park near the site of the Stardust was eventually developed. In recent years the Butterlys leased part of the premises for a new public house, which was boycotted for several weeks by the victims families.

A song by Christy Moore was banned by the High Court in the 1980s after the Butterlys objected to some of its verses.

With months before a general election, the families of the victims and the survivors are determined to ensure the issue will influence the outcome of the vote in the three north-Dublin constituencies. If the families do not get a new public inquiry, and some closure over the deaths of their loved ones, the fate of the 48 Stardust victims who never came home will continue to haunt the political landscape. π