Stardust doorman was 'all over the place' when he 'lied' about emergency exits 

Michael Kavanagh told inquest his claim after fire that exits had been unlocked was 'through stupidity' 

Fresh inquests are examining the deaths of 48 people following the fire at the nightclub in Artane in the early hours of St Valentine’s Day 1981. Picture: Colin Keegan/ Collins 

A former doorman at the Stardust club in north Dublin who initially claimed he had opened all the emergency exits on the night of the fire but later admitted telling “lies”, has told fresh inquests he was “caught up in something not of [his] own making”.

“It was through stupidity I did what I did,” Michael Kavanagh, then a 20-year-old doorman at the premises, said on Tuesday.

After what he termed a “reality check” from his father, he retracted the statement just a few days after making it to gardaí on the Monday after the fire.

“It triggered something off on me,” he said. “I was the one they were trying to pin the whole exit door thing on. I was being lambasted. I felt they were trying to make a scapegoat out of me at the time.” 

Mr Kavanagh began his evidence to open a crucial few weeks before the 14-person jury at the Stardust inquests on Tuesday. These fresh inquests are examining the deaths of 48 people following the fire at the nightclub in Artane in the early hours of St Valentine’s Day 1981.

The court heard Mr Kavanagh's his girlfriend at the time, Paula Byrne, died in the fire and he had gone to several different hospitals in the early hours that morning to search for news of her.

Mr Kavanagh told a journalist in the early hours of the morning and later RTÉ’s Today Tonight programme he had unlocked the doors. He then gave a statement to gardaí to the same effect.

However, a witness statement from a friend of Mr Kavanagh’s, as well as that friend’s father, suggested Mr Kavanagh had said words to the effect that the exit doors had been chained and padlocked on the night of the fire. They had told gardaí he had said this to them shortly after the fire.

Mr Kavanagh said he did not dispute their evidence.

When asked by counsel for the coroner, Simon Mills SC, why he originally made a statement to gardaí saying he had unlocked the emergency exit doors when that had not in fact been the case, Mr Kavanagh said: “I can’t even remember making a statement. A lot of what happened then was a blur. I was all over the place.” 

Mr Kavanagh also said a new policy initiated in the weeks before the fire was that exit doors would be kept locked until after midnight on disco nights. 

He said it was suggested to more junior staff like himself that Stardust manager Eamon Butterly was “basically pissed off” at patrons getting in for free.

His evidence continues on Wednesday.