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“I got that shudder and said, ‘Jesus, don’t tell me they’re turning on the heating now’. It was nearly time to go home. I looked at my watch and it was 1.33am. I was after getting one of these digital watches for my birthday. One of these you pressed and the light came on. We looked at it and said ‘Now they’re turning the heat on!’. It turns out it wasn’t the heat, but the first heat from the fire I felt.” – Linda Bishop
13 FEBRUARY 1981 was all set to be a big night at the Stardust club in Artane, north Dublin.
After a series of heats featuring dozens of entrants, two people were to set to be crowned the king and queen of the dancefloor in the disco dancing competition.
In Episode Two of Stardust from TheJournal.ie, we hear from the people who were there that night on the excitement that been building up for weeks ahead of Valentine’s weekend, and the lengths you’d have to go to get past the bouncers.
We also look at the history of the building – which was formerly a jam factory – and how it came to be opened as a nightclub with attached bar and restaurant in the late 1970s.
Click here to view a larger version.
In the months prior to the fire, the Stardust had been inspected a number of times by Dublin Corporation. Its inspector found problems such as locked doors and obstructed exits.
The owners of the Stardust wrote back to Dublin Corporation to say that “all exits will be kept clear when the public are on the premises”. This wasn’t the case in the early hours of Valentine’s Day 1981.
But on a fiercely cold February night, none of the young people going to the Stardust knew any of this.
They just wanted to have a good time. And they did. Up until around 1.30am, it was a night like any other. Within minutes, however, all that would change.
You can listen to the podcast below, or listen to it wherever you get your podcasts. If you like what you hear, please give us a rating and review.
Stardust / SoundCloud
Search for Stardust or TheJournal.ie on your favourite podcast app. Can’t find it? Email nicky@thejournal.ie.
Stardust is presented by Sean Murray, produced by Nicky Ryan with executive producer Christine Bohan. Image in cover art by PA Images.
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Cos that decisions not gonna cause any problems.
“A nonagenarian lawyer representing a Hindu deity “ ..well presumably the lawyer for the other side is also representing a fictitious deity?
This is a very dangerous development.
@Gary Sheahan: why?
When the gods start warring with each other it seems to go on forever .I wonder did ever hear about a Good Friday kind of thing and follow their poor mortals and come up with some sort of arrangement
Hmm, what could possibly go wrong?
India going out of their way to piss off the muslims
@Mr.Misery: yep the Danes and French caused mayhem with a couple of cartoons. What are the Indians thinking??
@Greg Daniel: PM Modi is a Hindu ethno-nationalist, he’s been whipping up anti-Muslim sentiment for ages in India as a means to get into and hold onto power-he is a dangerous individual who will end up formenting mass murder if he’s not careful
@Mr.Misery: What could India possibly have against the religion that killed as many as 80 million of their people?
@DJ François: Yep, definitely. Kashmir was only the start of it. Now this. Lots more to come
@Fifty Shades of Sé: 80 million Indians killed by Muslims? Where did you get that from?
@Fifty Shades of Sé: religion killed 80 million? Hope they caught it.
@DJ François: hate mongering at it’s worst
@Niall Carry: I’m a Hindu. I know what we have suffered at the hands of invaders since time immemorial
But that is what Islam does, look at all the Christian sites in Israel as they all had an Islamic site built on most of them. And Christians did the same to pagan sites and so on and so on…
have your say