Stardust survivor describes people lying on stairs after ‘giving up’ due to fire’s smoke

A survivor of the 1981 Stardust fire has described “feeling” his way up stairs as people lay on the steps having “given up” as the foyer filled with smoke and heat.

Anthony Preston, 24 at the time of the disaster, told Dublin coroner’s court on Wednesday people were trapped “like cattle” in the main exit hall as he crawled to a first-floor window, smashing it with his bare hands “to get air”.

Mr Preston was one of six witnesses, all patrons on the night of the blaze, giving testimony on day 76 of fresh inquests into the deaths of 48 people, aged 16 to 27, in a fire in the north Dublin nightclub in the early hours of February 14th, 1981.

He had been holding hands with Margaret Kiernan (19), who perished, when they got into the foyer to leave and the lights went out.

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“It was packed. There was two doors [at the exit]. One door was opened the other was closed. We were behind that door like cattle, pushing and shoving. We went down on the ground for a couple of minutes and then, Margaret she ran away from me and I didn’t see her after that.

“I tried to make my way up the stairs, feel my way up the stairs,” he said. Asked about the level of smoke and heat, he said: “You only had one intake of breath. I had to hold it until I got up those steps to get air. I just wanted to get air.

“There was people giving up. They were all on the stairs, giving up. The fumes. They were dying before the fire got to you.”

He got to windows above the Stardust sign at the front and “started smashing the window with my hands just to get air ... Somebody seen my hand and came and dragged me out. I don’t know who they were to this day.”

Bernard Tully, 16 at the time, said he had tried to “bunk in” for free to see a Showaddywaddy gig about two weeks before, but the emergency exit doors had been locked.

On the night of inferno, when he left and he was initially able to leave easily through the main exit. He went back to get his jacket, however as it had been a Christmas present.

“I went into the cloakroom ... I knew there was something wrong but I didn’t know how serious it was.” He could not get back into the foyer due to the “absolute, terrible” panic.

“It was mayhem. There was people on top of people. The noise, you never heard a sound like it. The screams of people. The cries of people, shouting trying to get out ... We couldn’t get out and that stage then the lights went.”

He and another young man got into the adjoining cash office. “We couldn’t see anything ... but there was a window”. They were able to open it about three inches. “We were getting a little bit of air from that ... but it was sucking the smoke to the window, so it was getting worse ... The smoke was getting bad, I couldn’t breathe and I was thinking, ‘This is it’.

“My life did flash in front of me, the short little life I did have ... I honestly I thought I was going to die.”

He put his coat over his nose and mouth, picked up a stool and smashed the glass over-counter partition into the foyer.

“Me and the other chap got up on to the counter and basically just thrun ourselves out and basically fell out the front door on top of people,” he said.

Justin McAteer, 18 at the time, escaped out exit 1 – at the back of tiered seating area, and down two flights of steps outside. He described smoke as “very acrid, very difficult,” as he got out. From first seeing smoke inside to getting out took between 30 and 45 seconds. Once out he said, the fire “had a firm grip on the building”.

Anthony Kavanagh, 19 at the time, was one of three men who “rammed” at exit 3 for about a minute, to get it open. A member of the Defence Forces he had good “upper body strength” he said. A van was parked right outside the door and people became trapped under it. He helped pull them out, badly damaging his knee and requiring surgery and several months’ rehabilitation in St Bricin’s military hospital after.

Tom Dempsey, whose age was not given in court, got out easily through the adjoining Lantern Rooms soon after the fire was first seen when he got around to the front, he could see into the entrance hall.

“All I could see was faces, looking out, stricken, terrified faces ... and behind them just orange and black smoke in the ceiling. It was scary ... The guards had arrived, ambulances had arrived, fire brigade had arrived. But nobody had a plan, nobody had an action ... it was chaos. There was no organisation, no plan of action, nobody seemed to be in charge. It was just mad.”

He walked home.

“I was looking back over the houses and it was like looking back at fireworks ... The sky was filled with orange and it was just unreal looking at it over the houses.”

The inquests continue.