'It still hurts as if it was yesterday' — Victims' sisters tell Stardust inquest of four decades of grief

Thu, 27 Apr, 2023 - 15:01

Sean Murray

Three sisters released four decades of grief as the moving testimonies continued at the Stardust inquests in Dublin.

On the third day, the inquest heard accounts from the families of Johnny Colgan (21), Jacqueline Croker (18), and Liam Dunne (18), three of the 48 who lost their lives in the fire at a disco in the early hours of Valentine’s Day 1981 in the Stardust club in north Dublin.

A painter-decorator, an office worker, and a trainee butcher all idolised by their fathers, and their mothers’ pride and joy. Beloved siblings and friends who all went out on a Friday night to have a good time but would never return home.

Sisters of the victims talked about how they worry so much when their own children go out, unable to sleep until they come home, constantly checking the fire exits in venues. It's all part of the devastating impact of losing a loved one.

Speaking for her brother Johnny, Susan Behan described a “natural charmer” and a “truly special person”. His favourite song was Lovely Day by Bill Withers which summed up his outlook on life. Ms Behan was pregnant at the time, and due to give birth in less than a month. Johnny couldn’t wait to be an uncle.

She said:

I treasure those last few moments but it still hurts as if it was yesterday when I think about it.

Johnny’s best friend Kenny would describe how Johnny helped him out of the Stardust venue on the night of the tragedy after he’d fallen three times in the scramble to escape. Kenny said Johnny went back in because he could hear girls crying in the toilets.

“It sounds exactly like something he would do,” Ms Behan said. “Losing Johnny in the Stardust was indescribable. The effect of losing him continues to this day. It dictates how I think, how I view certain things, and how I worry about my own dear children.”

The second pen portrait of the day was delivered by Síobhán Kearney for her brother, Liam Dunne. The pair loved music and would pool their money together to buy records. He was a “truly loved son and brother”.

On the morning after the blaze, Ms Kearney found her brother in the Mater Hospital while her parents were searching elsewhere. It was “horrible” walking through the hospital searching. One of Liam’s own brothers walked by him several times, having not recognised him.

She found Liam all swollen with bandages on his hands and arms, and spitting up stuff. “I said, ‘I’m here Liam, it’s Síobhán’. He said, ‘I was crawling, my hands were melting’. I had to leave as it was terrible.”

He was in ICU beside his good friend Jimmy Fitzpatrick. For the next month, they were in hospital. Liam died just before midday on 11 March. He was buried on the month’s anniversary of the Stardust.

Ms Kearney said:

I also died. I was 16 and the pain of that sadness has never left me.

Jacqueline Croker, meanwhile, started working at 15 to support her family. She loved listening to records by Dolly Parton, John Lennon, Johnny Logan, and Diana Ross.

She would buy the Top of the Pops LP with her wages as a treat for her siblings. She had gotten engaged at Christmastime.

Her sister, Alison Keane, described being woken up early in the morning and being asked what clothes Jackie had been wearing to try and identify her at the morgue. She was just 12 at the time.

“It’s not as simple as just one person being lost to our family,” she said. “Everyone knew everyone in our community and each loss was felt by the community as well as the families.

“Living at home after the Stardust fire, you wouldn’t be able to get onto a bus without seeing someone either with visible scarring from a burn sustained that night at the Stardust or someone known to you who had lost someone in the fire."

The impact of the Stardust fire on the family was incalculable. Her own kids were robbed of an aunt. Her parents robbed of a daughter.

“Mam sometimes has a bad day,” she said. “My mam is 88 now and I’d love to be able to bring her some kind of closure.”