Parents tell Stardust inquest of getting young daughter's melted belongings in morgue

(Left to right) Maurice and Phyllis McHugh at The Pillar Room, Rotunda Foundation, Parnell Square East, Dublin, last year. They want to “get some respite and closure to lessen the burden of our grief”. File picture: Gareth Chaney/ Collins Photos

On the morning of February 13, 1981, Maurice and Phyllis McHugh were going to Dublin Port to catch the Holyhead ferry. Phyllis’s cousin in Manchester was getting married.

Having learned the art from her father who was the head baker in Bewley’s of Grafton Street, Phyllis baked and decorated a four-tier wedding cake as a present.

Their only child Caroline (17) didn’t want to go to the wedding. She wanted to go to the big dancing competition in the Stardust that Friday night with her pals instead. Her best friend’s mother Alecia had said she would look after her and sure they would only be away for two nights.

Dropping her to work on the way to the ferry, they were told by Caroline to enjoy themselves and “don’t do anything I wouldn’t do”. It was the last time Maurice and Phyllis McHugh saw Caroline alive. 

“We always regretted this decision and feel guilty about it to this day,” Maurice told the Stardust inquests on Tuesday. What happened in the Stardust that night haunts the McHughs, as it does the families of all those who lost a loved one in the fire.

At the fresh inquests taking place on the very grounds of the hospital she was born in, the McHughs got a chance to describe their beloved daughter in depth in the Rotunda Hospital’s Pillar Room. Educated in Loreto on the Green, Caroline loved singing, Irish dancing, swimming, and loved to read Enid Blyton.

A hard worker, she was also a member of the local CB radio club. She was known as Slimline and her friend Annmarie Murphy was called Foxy Lady.

Maurice and Phyllis were oblivious to what had happened in the Stardust when they woke up on Saturday, February 14. When informed that there had been a fire and Caroline was missing, they quickly tried to book a flight home. The next available was in Liverpool so they decided to drive there from Manchester. Not a word was exchanged in the car.

Every half an hour, they would stop and use a coin box telephone to phone home. Arriving back in Dublin at 8.30pm that evening, they were driven straight to the morgue. Caroline had been “bagged and tagged” as “number six”.

Her father said:

We were advised not to see the remains because of severe burns and that she had no hair, was unrecognisable and unidentifiable.

“We were then handed a piece of a back pocket of Caroline’s jeans with a melted comb stuck to it. The pocket was soaking wet, also handed to us was the melted remains of a wristwatch and thirdly, the remains of a gold chain partly melted with Caroline’s name on it.” 

Over the past 42 years, not a day goes by when they don’t think of her, Maurice said. They tend her grave once a week to adorn it with flowers. He said they were “still grieving for our lost daughter cruelly taken away from us so young”.

“We often wonder on that night did Caroline shout out the names of her daddy and mammy. Caroline loved her daddy and mammy,” he said.

Caroline McHugh was 17 when she lost her life in the Stardust disaster. She loved singing, Irish dancing, swimming, and loved to read Enid Blyton. Picture: Maura Hickey 

Now in their 80s, the McHughs feel they have missed out on so much. Would she have had a successful career, would she have gotten married, would they have grandchildren? After all this time, Maurice said they hope at the end of this inquest process they can finally “get some respite and closure to lessen the burden of our grief”.

Reading out a poem for Caroline, Phyllis McHugh said: “They say it’s a beautiful journey, from the old world to the new. Some day I will make the journey, just to be with you. Thank you for listening.” 

James Millar

Also giving a pen portrait was Laura Millar, for her brother James (Jim) Millar (21) who died in the Stardust. He was engaged to be married, his whole life ahead of him. 

Laura said:

I am telling this story as all our family has died, leaving only me to tell it. 

Living up North, his father had encouraged to keep out of harm’s way and away from the Troubles in the North at that time, which led Jim to settle in Dublin. “That decision had always come back many times to haunt our dad who now blamed himself for Jim’s death,” Laura said.

After a last, wonderful Christmas, Jim had invited them down to Dublin for the Stardust dancing competition but they didn’t go. When the family got the call at 6pm on the Saturday evening, Laura said they were told her dad’s cry could be heard all over the estate.

“So many lives were destroyed that night and to see my mum and dad going to pieces was heartbreaking,” she said. “Maybe seeing justice being done will help a little, but it’s been a long time coming. Too long.”