Stardust inquests: Teen’s futile attempt to break sealed windows and rescue screaming people recalled

The futile efforts of a teenager to break sealed-shut windows and try to rescue people in the Stardust nightclub, in which 48 people died in a fire in 1981, were heard at inquests into the deaths on Tuesday.

Joseph Cumiskey, who was 18 at the time of the tragedy, became distressed during his evidence at Dublin District Coroner’s Court recounting hearing screams from inside the venue as it became “a blaze”.

Mr Cumiskey was the first witness in the second module of the inquests into the deaths of 48 people aged 16 to 27 in the Artane nightclub in the early hours of February 14th, 1981. The inquests have been hearing direct evidence since May.

The first module ended on Friday with the last day of evidence from the former manager of the Stardust, Eamon Buttlery. The module heard from staff and management.

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Module 2, expected to hear from more than 100 witnesses, will comprise nightclub patrons on the night and members of the public who saw the fire. Two further modules will hear from emergency services and expert witnesses.

Mr Cumiskey told the inquests he had been sitting with friends at the back of tiered seating as a disco-dancing competition ended, when he smelled smoke. He then saw flames through a shutter on seating on the other side of the ballroom.

He recalled thinking, “There’s something’s not right here ... get out, get out” and he urged friends with him to leave via a side-exit, known as exit 1. He said it was easily opened. The inquests heard previously that a doorman unlocked this exit shortly after the fire was first seen.

Once out he went to the front of the building where he saw a male leaning out a first-floor window above a canopy screaming for help.

[ Full coverage of the Stardust inquests, including profiles of the 48 people who died ]

“His face was badly cut. I got someone to heave me up and I felt him out the window and over the canopy.”

He then saw someone with a hammer at the toilet windows, he said. He grabbed the hammer and tried to break the glass in the windows “but it wouldn’t break ... I could hear screams inside for help.”

“You could hear,” Mr Cumiskey said, becoming upset. “You could hear the screams ... There was nothing I could have done.”

The inquests have heard how between three and six weeks before the disaster, metal plates and bars were welded inside the windows to stop people breaking the panes and handing “alcohol” and “weapons” in.

Asked by counsel about trying to break the toilet windows, Mr Cumiskey said: “What else could I do? ... There was people there. You could hear the screams ... I did what ever I could.”

He said he remembered a bar going across the window and there “was steel alright”.

By this stage, he said, “the whole roof was in a blaze”. He ran around to the far side, to exit 4, “and “saw people coming out ... some of them were on fire”.

Coroner Dr Myra Cullinane told the witness she was aware “it’s really difficult and really hard to bring the events back to mind”.

Eileen Rock, who was a 22-year-old mother of one at the time of the blaze, told Mark Tottenham BL, a member of the coroner’s legal team, that people were panicking and “it was just chaos” as she tried to make her way to the exit.

Ms Rock attended the Stardust on the night with her husband John, her sister-in-law Patrica Rock and Patricia’s boyfriend. She said that when she first noticed the smoke it was “really dense” and was “licking across the ceiling” with “roaring red flames”.

Asked by Mr Tottenham if anyone was trying to take control of the situation, Ms Rock said: “No, it was sheer panic”. She said as they got to the exit door the lights went out and “it was like a stampede”.

The witness confirmed that when she was outside, a female member of staff was screaming for help to lift a metal shutter and her husband assisted the woman. Ms Rock said that when they went around to the front of the building, people were “screaming for their lives”. She said some of them were trying to break the windows.

The inquest continues.