A FLOOR MANAGER who was working at the Stardust told gardaí that when the fire was noticed he heard Eamon Butterly, the manager of the club, say: “The b*st**ds started a fire”, an inquest has been told.

In statements made following the fire, Phelim Kinahan, who worked part time as a floor manager at the facility, told how, as the fire took hold, the hall started filling up with “black smoke” and he shouted to the patrons to leave the building.

In the statements, read to the inquest today, Kinahan said those leaving the building were “choking with the fumes” and he noticed a person crouching under a chair and helped another barman to drag the girl, who was badly burned, out of the building.

Kinahan also told how, prior to the fire, he found a chain on one exit door in an unlocked position and hanging from one of the bars. He said he put the chain across the second door to “give the impression” that both doors were locked together.

Recounting the situation in the club before the blaze broke out, Kinahan said the patrons were dancing and enjoying themselves. They were orderly and the whole atmosphere was electric, he said.

He said when his function at the door ended on the night, he went to see Eamon Butterly who was in the Swan Bar. Kinahan said he was talking to Butterly for about five minutes and when he was on his way back into the Stardust when he was told by a barman that there was a fire in the hall.

He said he looked around the corner to the sloping area which had been shuttered off and noticed that one of the shutters was up and he could see the top seats near the wall at the side of the building were on fire.

Kinahan said he asked the patrons who were seated near where the fire was located to move back and then he ran up the stairs to the light room and brought up the lights to a brighter beam as they had been on a dim light up until then.

He said when he came back to the hall again the place was “filing up with black smoke” and he shouted to the patrons seated at the sloping area at the back to make their way towards the exit.

Fumes

At this stage, he could hear the man on the stage telling people to evacuate the hall and make their way towards the exits and it was around this time that the power failed.

Kinahan said he was “choking with the fumes” as were all the others going towards the exit.

He said he succeeded in getting all the patrons who followed him outside safely. He said he then went to the Lantern Rooms and there were only 20 people left and he helped them outside also.

Kinahan said he then asked a barman for torches and after getting four, he gave some to the other doormen and kept one for himself. He then went to exit D, he said and shone the torch inside.

The floor manager said he saw some people crouched down inside the door. There was smoke at this exit at the time, he said, and he put his coat over his face and went in and took two of them out.

“I kept shining my torch and more people came to the exit,” he said. “All of those people walked out and they were choking with the fumes.”

He said he then noticed a person crouched under a chair and said with the assistance of a doorman, they dragged this person out and saw it was a girl.

She was badly burned, he said and at this stage the fire brigade came and took over. He said in the meantime, he and others tried to stop people going back in. He said he then went to help to bring another four people out of the Stardust dressing room.

Broken switch

In a second statement, Kinahan said that at around 9pm he went in to the main bar and switched on the heating for the Stardust. He said there were three switches on the wall of the bar about six foot six inches from the ground. He said the switch on the left was not working and he had been told by Eamon Butterly a few weeks previously not to touch it.

He said there was a sign put up underneath the switch saying that it was not to be touched by anybody only Eamon Butterly and one other person.

Kinahan said on the night of the fire, sometime after midnight, he went up to exit number one and noticed that the upright bar on these doors was missing and the doors could not be locked. He said he walked out this door along the passageway towards the outer exit door.

He said he went to exit four and the chain was in an unlocked position. He said the chain was hanging from one of the bars and he put it across the second door to “give the impression” that both doors were locked together.

Kinahan said he spoke to Eamon Butterly in the Swan Bar for about five minutes at around 1.20am or 1.30am and was about to go into the Stardust when he met a barman who told him there was a fire in the Stardust.

He said he went out and saw that the curtain nearest the bar was up. He said as he was looking at the fire, Eamon Butterly was standing beside him and he heard him say: “The bastards started a fire” or some words to that effect.

He said he had never received any instruction on fire drill.

In a further statement, Kinahan said he remembered James Murphy, who was employed as a washer upper at Stardust, telling him about the smell of rubber some months before the fire. He said he also got the smell, which was like rubber burning. The floor manager said he turned off the heaters and the smell disappeared.

Kinahan said he reported the smell to Eamon Butterly and the next day Butterly told him that he had to buy a new motor for the heater which cost him a fortune.