1980s Stardust evidence under pressure

PB October/November 2023 October/November 2023 11

Manager Butterly’s

“self-serving”

evidence, as it was

described by Michael

O’Higgins SC,

especially about the

practice of locking

doors, has been

unravelling at the

Coroner’s inquest

t has taken over forty years but ﬁ nally the

general manager of the Stardust has been

called to account for his role in the tragedy

that killed 48 young people, and injured

128 more, on Valentine’s Day, 1981.

Eamon Butterly, who ran the Artane nightclub

owned by his late father, Patrick, turned up to the

inquest at the Rotunda hospital grounds in Dublin

to face days of gruelling examination by lawyers

acting for the families of the bereaved.

Butterly was brash and combative from the

outset, displaying what some of the families

perceived as barely concealed arrogance, as he

sought to blame everyone but himself for the

disaster.

As days of interrogation rolled on, Butterly’s

“self-serving” evidence, as it was described by

Michael O’Higgins SC, steadily unravelled.

On 28 September, 78-year-old Butterly was

forced to reject the barrister’s accusation that he

was “telling lies” and that his account of what

happened under his watch before, during and

after the ﬁ re was “vague”, “contradictory” and

“not founded on the truth”.

However, even what Butterly did accept as true

was wrongdoing by his company and the

management which he led.

What has emerged so far was a policy, which

Butterly oversaw, of minimal adherence to basic

health and safety laws and regulations and an

apparent reluctance to pay for the professional

advice required for the venture. The original

architect, WDC White, who drew up the plans to

turn the Scott’s Food processing factory into a

huge disco, left when Patrick Butterly refused to

pay his fees.

“When we failed to reach agreement on the

issue of my fee I parted company with Mr

Butterly”, the original and ﬂ awed tribunal of

inquiry into the Stardust ﬁ re was told in 1981.

Instead, Harold Gardner, an upholsterer by

trade, was brought in to deal with Dublin

Corporation and its Chief Fire Oﬃ cer. Eamon

Butterly agreed that Gardner was not a qualiﬁ ed

architect and that he was drafted in to supervise

the job because he owed his father money. One

consequence of this thriftiness was that

ﬂ ammable carpet tiles were used on the walls,

accelerating the spread of the ﬁ re.

Butterly was forced to concede that a number

of the ﬁ re doors were locked and others ‘mock-

locked’ (with chains draped over push bars to

make them appear locked) preventing the exit of

patrons trying to escape the ﬁ re. He blamed the

NEWS

It was utterly Butterly

By Frank Connolly

head doorman, his uncle, Tom Kennan, for

introducing the policy of locking the doors. Asked

why he told the Garda in the days after the tragedy

that the practice had only been in place for three

weeks when in fact it had been routine for over a

year, Butterly had no clear answer. He said the

windows in the toilets had been covered with

steel a few weeks before the disaster as, he

claimed, people were passing in weapons and

drink to patrons.

He told the 1981 tribunal chaired by Judge

Ronan Keane that, in the immediate aftermath of

the ﬁ re, he recalled that Kennan had told him that

he had unlocked all the exits at 11.30 p.m. on the

night and there was relief all round that this had

been done.

“Wasn’t it a good job, Tom, you opened the

doors?” Butterly had asked.

At the current inquest hearings, Butterly

continued to insist that Kennan had opened all

the doors at 11.30 p.m. an hour and a half before

the ﬁ re ﬁ rst broke out. This was untrue and at

least three exits, 1, 5 and 6, were locked after this

time. He agreed that his father, Patrick, had

warned him some time previously that the policy

of locking the exits could cause “trouble”.

He told O’Higgins that he still believed that

Kennan had unlocked the doors before the ﬁ re.

However, he did not tell the gardaí in 1981 that

the doors were locked earlier in the night.

“They didn’t ask me. I just wanted to make sure

they knew the doors were unlocked at the time of

the ﬁ re”, Butterly said.

“What is signiﬁ cant is that you didn’t tell them

there was a policy of locking doors. You didn’t tell

them doors were locked…You omitted that

deliberately”, said O’Higgins.

“Well you can say I omitted it deliberately. I

disagree with you”, Butterly replied.

O’Higgins questioned why he had told gardaí

the policy of draping chains over the push bars

on the exit doors had been in place for three

weeks, when it had been policy for years. This

account was “self-serving, it was untrue and it

was said for a particular purpose”, the lawyer

suggested.

1980s Stardust

evidence under

pressure

Strdust mnger, Emon Butterly