Cork native Paudie Spillane took shelter just metres from terrorists of Paris attacks

A Cork artist has told how he and three colleagues took shelter in the basement of a Paris restaurant just a couple of hundred metres from a cafe where 19 of last Friday’s victims were gunned down by terrorists.

Paudie Spillane, from Passage West, and the three others, who are all also based in Cork, were at a photography event before going for dinner in Bones Restaurant at approximately 8pm (local time) in the 11th arrondissement, the area where many of the attacks, which claimed 129 lives, occurred.

The restaurant was, Mr Spillane estimates, 150-200m from La Belle Equipe cafe, where 19 people were shot.

“When we were finishing up dinner, we all got texts at roughly the same time from people at home who were seeing what was happening on the news.

"It was quite scary at that point because we really did not know what was happening.”

The party were at the back of the restaurant which, he said, was on a quiet street.

“The restaurant had been quite full but when we were looking at our phones, we did not realise people had begun to leave the building.

"Then the owner of the restaurant came over to us and asked did we want to get onto wifi to check what was happening.”

He said by that point only a few tables still had customers.

“When they (the restaurant owners) got notification that something was happening very close to us, they brought us down to the basement.

"They turned off all the lights and locked the door and brought us down through a trapdoor.”

In all, he estimates there were approximately six staff and eight customers taking refuge in the basement.

“We were very anxious. Some people were more nervous, others were quite together, some people sobered up very fast.

"No one was hysterical, but everyone was quiet, taking stock of the situation.”

Mr Spillane was full of praise for the staff who, he said, were very calm and generous.

“We were down there for about four hours, roughly until 3am French time.

"We had wifi down there and people were still able to text. In some ways, we felt very safe once the door was closed behind us.

"We were completely in our own bubble in some ways. That bubble burst when we were allowed back out again.”

When they got out, they could see all the blue lights. The owner gave them directions on how to make their way out of the area safely.

“It was one of those surreal moments where you know so much has gone on around you,” he said.

“We knew the Bataclan had been hit, we knew that different restaurants had been hit. The whole place felt shocked.

"You could see people were just trying to get home from wherever they were.”

He admitted as they became more informed as to what had happened, it hit them it could have been any restaurant that was targeted.

The colleagues remained in Paris until Monday.

“On Saturday, we had a meeting with French colleagues. We did not think they would come to the meeting, but they did.

"They insisted it should still happen. There was a sense of just keep going.

"On Sunday, we laid flowers in different locations where the attacks were and saw the emotion of people, their resilience, that they wanted to pay their respects.”