Haunting recreation at Stardust inquests

Court sees  detailed digital recreation of what the Stardust club looked like prior to the fire in which 48 people died

The interior of the Stardust which went on fire on the morning of February 14, 1981, killing 48 young people. 

As the computer-generated recreation came onto the screen, it seemed surreal. And haunting.

Minutes before, the court had seen over four minutes of aerial footage captured at the time of the charred remains of the Stardust venue in north Dublin. 

From above, you could see the extensive fire damage to the roof.

And, because there are so few photos of the Stardust from before the fire, so many of the photos used to illustrate the points being made were from afterwards. 

The utter devastation in the venue became the background as different exits were highlighted, or the different alcoves in the venue described.

In a section showing possible exits from the Stardust, photographs of the fire exits were shown with the ravaged remnants of the venue visible on each occasion.

Wednesday at these fresh inquests was an exercise in “uncontested facts”, trying to visualise for the jury what the Stardust was like and what all parties agree happened.

Dublin city coroner Dr Myra Cullinane was fully aware of the potential impact of what the families in attendance were about to see. 

Some of those watching in person and online were in the Stardust on the night of the fire. And some lost loved ones. They may have recognised the details of what they were about to see.

Digital recreation

“It might be distressing to see the materials,” she said, adding that they were free to exit the Pillar Room in Dublin’s Rotunda Hospital, the venue for these inquests, if they wished to do so.

What was then shown to the court was an incredibly detailed digital recreation of what the Stardust club looked like prior to the fire in the early hours of February 14, 1981.

Going through the main doors of the Stardust, the court was shown the window where you’d pay your entry fee or have your ticket checked on the right-hand side. 

The cloakroom was just beyond that. There were stairs leading up on the left but patrons would go straight through beyond the entrance hall into the main ballroom.

The details were striking.

The cigarette machine as you walked in. The taps on the bars. The microphone stand on the stage. The location of the seating, and the two big alcoves to the north and west of the main sitting and dancing area.

The digital recreation brought us around the Stardust club. It took us into the toilets nearest to the main entrance.

The inquests heard that, six weeks prior to the fire, steel plates had been fixed where the windows in these toilets were located for 'security purposes'. 

The plates were pained pink in the women’s bathrooms and blue in the men’s.

After Mark Tottenham, counsel for the inquests, talked through the different aspects of the venue, he let the recreation play out again in silence. These details to help visualise the scene may prove important for the jury as they consider the evidence they will hear in the coming weeks and months.

He went into the most granular of detail, such as one of the doors at Exit 5 opening just 90 degrees because of a shed outside the venue. And the details of the emergency lighting systems.

If the visualisation showed the Stardust as it might have looked, the other photos available showing the aftermath of the fire stood out in sharp contrast. 

The bright colours of the recreation were distinct from the blackness of the building in the post-fire photos. The before. And the after.

Police stand outside the main entrance of a fire-blackened Stardust Disco in Artane, Dublin.

The jury also heard about the number of staff on duty on the day, including the number of doormen and how long they had worked at the Stardust.

And it will be up to the 15-person jury to, as the coroner put it, to “decide what happened” and be the “arbiters of truth” when it comes to these inquests into the 48 people who died in the Stardust fire.

This sitting was to help them in that goal for all that they will be hearing in future about the Stardust. These simple facts are uncontested. What will be heard in future evidence will be very much subject to questioning and probing by the various legal teams.

The jury returns on 7 June when the first witnesses will begin giving evidence. 

The fresh Stardust inquests may finally be under way. But with over 300 witnesses listed, ranging from the eyewitness accounts to detailed technical and expert evidence, there is still some way to go.