Stardust fire seemed to start in ceiling and was ‘dripping’ on to seats, witness tells inquest

A witness has told the Stardust inquests it “stuck” in his mind that the fire appeared to start in the ceiling and was “dripping” on to seats in the area where flames were first seen.

Kenneth Strong, who was 19 at the time of the 1981 disaster, told Dublin Coroner’s Court on Monday that he went to the Dublin nightclub that night with friends from his job in the Northside Shopping Centre.

Fresh inquests are being held into the deaths of 48 people in a fire in the Stardust ballroom in Artane in the early hours of February 14th, 1981, on foot of a 2019 direction by then attorney general Séamus Woulfe.

Mr Strong said among his group that night were Liam Dunne (18), Mary Keegan (19) and her sister Martina (16), David Flood (18), George O’Connor (17) and David Morton (19), who all died.

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“There was a group of there who were working in Superquinn ... There would have been 10 or 15 of us,” he said. Mary Keegan worked in RTV rentals in the shopping centre.

Mr Strong described seeing smoke “drifting” from above the blind sectioning-off the west alcove area of tiered seating and seeing flames through an open section of a partition-blind.

“It was the seats that were on fire. What originally drew my attention to the fire was that I saw something that was on fire falling from the ceiling. I think it landed on the seats. I turned to my friend and tapped him on the shoulders and I said, ‘There is a fire. I am getting out of here’.”

He said Mr Dunne could “well” have been the friend whose shoulder he tapped.

He had last seen Mr Flood and the Keegan sisters earlier in the night, adding that Mr Dunne may have been dancing the last time he saw him.

He said he exited through the main entrance, known as exit two. When it was put to him that he had to pass exits three, four and five to get to exit two, he said it did not occur to him to try these as they were “always locked”.

Asked whether the source of the fire he saw was “in the ceiling”, he replied: “The way I recall it was in the ceiling. That’s how I remember it. That’s the one thing that stuck in my mind.”

David Heenan, who was 18 at the time of the fire, was among the last to see Caroline McHugh (17), who died in the blaze. He was standing near the stage watching the winners of the disco-dancing competition and went back to the table at about 1.40am.

A friend asked if he was leaving soon and went to get his coat. When he returned, he drew Mr Heenan’s attention to the fire in the west alcove.

“When I looked over I could see the fire was on the rear two seats nearest the bar ... Then the smoke started coming over to where we were. It was coming along the ceiling. Then I noticed some sort of liquid dripping down from the ceiling where the shutters were,” the witness said.

“Caroline said to me, ‘Will you walk me home?’ I said, ‘I’m getting out of here’.” Caroline and her friend went to get their coats from their table elsewhere in the club.

“I waited for a minute and then I went to get my own coat from the cloakroom. I went towards the main exit ... When I got to the doorway to the passageway the lights went out. The place was filling up with smoke ... I kept going toward the main door and I could not see where I was going.”

John King, 20 at the time, told the inquests he had been a regular at the Stardust. He went alone that night but met people from Donnycarney who he knew. After a few drinks and the meal, he fell asleep at a table at about 12.30am.

He was woken by a friend at about 1.15am and went to get his coat.

“Only for him I wouldn’t be here,” he told the inquests.

At about 1.30am, when he got his coat, a doorman had to unlock the front door with a key on a bunch of keys, and unlock the shutters with another key and pull them up to let him out, he said, adding that the same doorman pulled the shutters back down after he exited.