Stardust manager denies 'telling lies' to fresh inquest into 48 deaths

Eamon Butterly has been in the witness box at the Stardust inquests for the last week. Photo: Sam Boal / © RollingNews.ie

Stardust manager Eamon Butterly has denied “telling lies” to fresh inquests for those who died in the 1981 fire.

He also claimed if he were to have done anything differently it would’ve been never getting involved in converting the former factory into a nightclub.

During robust questioning of Mr Butterly at Dublin District Coroner’s Court on Thursday, it was put to him that his account around the unlocking of the doors on the night was “vague and completely contradictory and the reasons you’re so vague is that they’re not founded on truth”.

The witness replied: “Are you saying I’m telling lies? No I’m not.” 

Mr Butterly has been in the witness box at the Stardust inquests for the last week. The inquests are examining the circumstances of the deaths of the 48 young people following the fire in the nightclub, where over 800 people had been for a disco dancing competition.

The questioning of Mr Butterly has ranged from the carpet tiles used on the walls in the building, which fire experts say contributed to the spread of fire, to the practice of keeping certain doors locked while patrons would be inside on disco nights.

In the final question posed by Michael O’Higgins SC, for some of the families, he asked Mr Butterly if there’s anything he would have done differently.

“I’d have never gotten involved in converting that factory to a nightclub [in the late 1970s]," he said. "I’d have knocked it down and built a new one.” 

Mr O’Higgins repeated: “That’s the one thing you’d do differently?" and he replied: “I would, yeah.” 

'Mock locking'

Mr O’Higgins also quizzed Mr Butterly on the practice of “mock locking” the exit doors with chains draped over the bars to appear as if they were locked. 

Mr O'Higgins put it to him that he had told the gardaí this practice had only been in place for three weeks, but had told the Keane Tribunal into the fire in 1981 that it had been going on “for years”.

The barrister then suggested there was an “incentive” for him to say three weeks because it “minimised the wrongdoing” and was “self-serving”. Mr Butterly rejected this and said he didn’t mislead the gardaí.

It was put to him that even with this “mock locking”, people trying to escape on the night of the fire had severe difficulty in getting the emergency exits to open and the doors could jam.

He said that “if you pressed the bar down, the doors would open”, to which Mr O’Higgins replied that a demonstration was conducted with one of the actual doors at the Keane Tribunal.

“You pressed the bar at the Tribunal and it didn’t budge an inch,” he said.

At numerous junctures, Mr Butterly re-iterated that he was told by the head doorman, his uncle Tom Kennan, that all the exits to the Stardust had been opened that night.

He was asked by coroner, Dr Myra Cullinane, if he was in a position to prove that the doors were open, to which he replied: “I was in the position to tell anybody who asked me that Mr Kennan told me at 11.30 that all the doors were unlocked.” 

Mr Butterly also said that, with hindsight, “it was a very bad idea” to use the particular carpet tiles on the walls of the Stardust but maintained that Dublin Corporation — now the city council — hadn't raised any issue with them at the time.

His evidence before the 13-person jury continues on Friday.