There was “no plan” on how to evacuate the more than 800 people in the Stardust nightclub in north Dublin when it was engulfed by fire in February 1981 resulting in the deaths of 48 people, a barman working on the night has said.
Cormac Rose, who was 17 at the time, told inquests into the deaths on Thursday that he had started working as a 15 year-old lounge-boy at the Silver Swan bar – which was part of the Stardust venue – in March 1978 and was a full-time apprentice bar-man on the night of the disaster.
Fresh inquests are under way into the tragedy in the early hours of 14th February 1981 following a 2019 direction by then attorney general Séamus Woulfe that they be opened.
Mr Rose agreed that during his almost three years working at the Stardust complex there had been no formal training on what to do in the event of an emergency.
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The only “discussion” occurred about six months before the fire, involving bar manager Brian Peel and about half the bar staff, on “emergency procedures” – focused primarily on what to do in the event of an armed robbery.
“There was no formal evacuation training session,” he said. “We were told to evacuate the building...I would have understood it to be...evacuate the people around you and yourself…[by] pointing them to the exits,” he said.
On the night, when he saw the fire, he ran from the main ballroom into the adjacent Silver Swan to get a fire extinguisher, but on his way back was told by a colleague it was “too late” and the fire was “out of control”.
Brenda Campbell KC, for families of nine of the dead, asked Mr Rose: “As far as you can tell us, bearing in mind the discussions you had had on fire safety, bearing in mind the fact you were with Mr [Jack] Walsh the assistant manager, what happened to the evacuation of people who were in the Stardust?”
“There wasn’t a plan...I was never instructed in evacuation procedures,” said Mr Rose.
“What happened, as far as you are concerned, to help the people who were trapped in a building where a fire was out of control?” Ms Campbell asked.
“I don’t know what the question is. What happened? There was no plan. I told you...the manager told us to evacuate the building in the case of an emergency,” Mr Rose replied, adding that he understood this to mean “evacuate myself”.
Dr Myra Cullinane intervened to say Mr Rose could only be expected to provide evidence as to what actions he knew had been taken.
Ms Campbell asked: “What did he see in terms of action that was taken, at the point at which you were told that fire is out of control, there is no point?”
“I didn’t see any because I couldn’t see out ... into the Stardust,” Mr Rose said.
Dr Myra Cullinane intervened to say Mr Rose could only be expected to provide evidence as to what actions he knew had been taken. hho had been lying in the passageway to safety. Ms Campbell, questioning whether this had happened, asked him what her name was. He said he did not know, but her face was “very familiar”. She survived the fire, he said.
“So then after that I was overcome with smoke. I ran over to the grass verge ... I was coughing and coughing and coughing for a long time. At that stage there was a lot of pandemonium. I could hear people in the toilets banging trying to get out.
“You see I would have been familiar with an awful lot of the young boys and girls. I wouldn’t have known all their names but because I worked in the Silver Swan on a daily basis [and] a lot of them would have worked in the local area ... in some of the units behind Butterly Park, and some of them in Scotts factory, they would have come into the Silver Swan get their roll and their lunch every day.
“I would have known their faces. They were all in and around the same age as myself. So being a young lad, some of them you liked and some you would have had some good fun with, you know – built up a good relationship with down through the years. So, for me it has been devastating ever since to this day.”
