A TEENAGE WAITRESS was collecting glasses near the front of the Stardust stage on the night of the fire when she saw the ceiling start to “burn and collapse” just moments after she first noticed a “mass of flames”, an inquest has heard.

Pauline McConalogue, who was 17 at the time, said she’d never had a fire drill while working at the club and didn’t know where the fire exits were. She said she didn’t know “where to go or what to do”.

She said the DJ “asked the patrons not to panic but there was panic”.

In statements made at the time and read to the inquest today, McConalogue said: “At about 1.45am I was collecting glasses in the tiered seating area which was open that night when I looked to my right towards the closed off section and saw that the area was a complete mass of flames. 

“The shutters or at least a portion of them, were fully open at this time because I could see into that area where the fire was.”

She said she went towards her left as she faced the stage and had “just got a short distance when the lights went out”.  

In her original statement, McConalogue, who had been working at the club for three months when the fire broke out, stated: “The place was a mass of flames and the smoke was terrible.”

“I saw the ceiling start to burn and collapse but that was on the side opposite where I was. We couldn’t see where we were going and I didn’t really know where the fire exits were. I had never had a fire drill while working there and I didn’t know where to go or what to do”.

McConalogue said she didn’t know how she got out the door but thought “somebody pulled me out”.

She said the next thing she remembers was lying on the ground outside the door. She was not injured but her clothing was burned and she was “overcome by fumes and in a state of shock”.

“I was completely black from smoke and my clothing was also black. I didn’t know how many people were being taken out the exit. I waited for a while to see if my sister Siobhan [who also worked at the club] and my friends got out okay.” 

In a further statement, McConalogue said that at no time did she make any remark about persons putting “a match to the seats or did I hear anybody say anything to that effect”. 

In a fifth statement, the young waitress said about three weeks before the fire she was at work at about 9.30pm with a number of other members of staff in the dispense bar.

She said a lot of people were smoking and she was also smoking when, a short time later, she saw “what I thought to be smoke up around the control room”.

“It was not very thick, and it looked like cigarette smoke,” McConalogue said.

“I didn’t get any smell from it. The lads got very concerned about the smoke and started to search around for the source. I saw [a man] with a torch going around and up towards the light control room. “

She said when the disco opened up at around 10pm the smoke seemed to have vanished.

The inquest continues this afternoon.