RTÉ agrees to alter aspects of Stardust drama

RTÉ is set to alter its upcoming dramatisation of the 1981 Stardust disco fire following feedback from relatives of the victims who attended a special screening of the two-part series over the weekend.

The special screening of the film, arranged for those bereaved in the tragedy, was held in the Clontarf Castle Hotel on Saturday afternoon. Many left before the film had ended, however, unable to bear the harrowing depiction of the blaze.

“Seeing the fire and all the young people screaming and trying to come out was just too much,” said Elizabeth Buckley, whose son, 23-year-old Jimmy Buckley, was one of 48 people who lost their lives.

The controversial drama will be broadcast on RTÉ One on February 12 and 13 to mark the 25th anniversary of the fire. It focuses on the story of a number of the Dublin victims and their families, and the latter’s subsequent attempts to secure justice and bring the truth of the fire into the open.

In recent weeks, RTÉ has been pilloried for the manner in which the film’s production was handled. In many cases, victims of the blaze only learned of the drama through secondary sources, while many are further aggrieved that RTÉ did not go to greater lengths to consult with them on the film’s making.

Following a press screening in Montrose on Saturday night, RTÉ representatives Clare Duignan and Mary Callery explained in detail the decision to dramatise the tragedy.

Also in attendance were the film’s director Ciarán Donnelly, script-writer Paul Walker, and Tony McCullagh, whose 2001 book They Never Came Home provided the source material for the film.

Some families believe a documentary would have been the most appropriate way to mark the 25th anniversary of the fire.

However, Ms Duignan, who is director of programmes at RTÉ, pointed out that the station had featured such coverage on previous anniversaries of the tragedy, yet had a sense that Stardust “was beginning to fade into the mists of time”.

“I don’t know if a documentary exploration would have been able to tell a story that we felt hadn’t been told, and to engage a general audience,” she said.

Ms Duignan also revealed that following a “variety of responses” from relatives, RTÉ would be making a number of changes to the drama before it airs.

Some victims, she revealed, were unhappy that their personal stories were not adequately reflected in the film. “They felt that by telling the story through one or two families that we were somehow diminishing what the other families had experienced,” she said.

Another concern outlined by the families was that the names of the deceased should be read aloud at the end of the film rather than silently appearing onscreen as they do in the original.