Stardust survivor recalls horror of sisters’ deaths
Antoinette Keegan who was with her sisters, Mary and Martina, in the inferno believed they had survived until a priest broke the news to her in her hospital bed.
She tells a TV programme recalling the 1981 disaster: “A priest came in and he said ‘what’s your name’. I said ‘Antoinette Keegan’. He said ‘your two sisters died in the fire’.
Antoinette, a Stardust campaigner still seeking justice, told the priest that Mary was in the Mater Hospital and Martina was in the Meath.
She recalls: “He said ‘no, no…they are buried’.
“I just went hysterical. I screamed the place down. I said ‘No, they are not.’”
Later she realised her mother and father had been told not to say anything to her because of the condition she was in.
She finally accepted the reality that her sisters were dead and then she asked her father, John, how many more and he replied there were quite a lot.
The sisters were together in the Stardust in Artane, Dublin, with friends when suddenly a small fire raged across the ceiling and down onto the patrons. There was a rush to the exit doors, with people banging on the windows in the toilets.
The last thing Antoinette remembers was falling unconscious as she clutched her sisters’ hands.
She remembers: “Myself and my two sisters and two friends were pushed to the ground.
“We were on the floor and we were being pushed and we were all holding hands. We couldn’t breathe.”
The Stardust group wants a reinvestigation into the fire and are preparing a case for the EU Court of Human Rights. They are also still demanding a public apology from the Irish state.
* Scannal: Stardust – 30 Bliain. RTÉ1 Monday, 14, 7.30pm
