Stardust waitress knew how to open door but ‘it would not budge’, inquests hear

Unsuccessful efforts to open one of the six emergency exits at the Stardust nightclub, in which 48 young people died in a fire in February 1981, have been described by staff and the brother of one of those who died, at inquests into the deaths.

Fresh inquests into the death of 48 people, aged 16 to 27, in a fire at the north Dublin ballroom, were ordered in 2019 by then attorney general Séamus Woulfe. They are now in their eighth week at the Pillar Room, on the grounds of the Rotunda hospital, Dublin.

Belinda Pearse, who was 17 at the time, told the inquests on Tuesday she had been working as a waitress and smelt smoke at about 1.40am while working in an area of tiered seating known as the north alcove. She asked a colleague to go to the kitchen to alert them of the smell, while she went to open an exit known as exit six, to ventilate the area.

She agreed with Sean Guerin SC for the families of nine of the dead, she had been familiar with the door and how to open it.

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“You knew how to open them?” he asked. “Yes”.

“You knew that not only could you open the doors by pressing the horizontal bars, but you could actually manually move the vertical bars, by hand, yourself?” “You can do, yes.”

Reading from the evidence she gave to the 1981 tribunal of inquiry chaired by Mr Justice Ronan Keane, he quoted her as saying: “I grabbed hold of each side [the push bars], one on each side. They would not go. And I grabbed hold of the vertical bar and pushed it down. I did it like that but for some reason it would not budge.”

She had also described a chain being “looped around part of the bar”, said Mr Guerin.

“It appears you made a determined effort to open exit number six. You did so knowing how the door works.”

“Yes,” said Ms Pearse. “You had experience opening it?” “Yes. “”

“And you tried every which way you could think of by pushing and pulling, both the horizontal and vertical bars, and nothing you could do would open that door. Is that right?” “Yes”.

Later, 1981 Garda statements from Harry Wade – who was 20 at the time and whose younger brother Paul (17) was killed in the fire – were read into the record. He described going for drinks with friends and his brothers, Paul and Tony, and Paul’s girlfriend Susie Morgan (19) who also died, in the adjoining Silver Swan bar that night.

He and five others decided they would try to get into the Stardust by opening exit six from the outside.

He said: “The reason why I decided on exit six is because it is concealed and I had got in once before on a Sunday.”

At about 11.20pm he and the other five “slipped down the side of the building” and he put fingers under the door to try to pull it out. He couldn’t. One of the others went and “came back with a flat iron bar”.

“We tried to force the door open again. We got it open it up a bit more and then I saw chains wrapped around the bars. These chains were preventing us from opening the doors further. It was about 11.35pm at this stage.”

He then clambered on to the roof looking for a skylight to enter, but was unable to. He found a window and was unable to open it. He then fell from the roof, landing on beer kegs and joined the queue to get in. When the doormen wouldn’t let him in because he had no shirt and tie and was wearing jeans and runners he left with friends, getting home about 12.15am.

He fell asleep on the floor by the fire and was woken by the sound of the radio and his parents talking between 4.30am and 5.30am. His father woke him at about 7am, asking him to sit with his mother while he and his brother Tony went to the hospitals to look for Paul and Susan.