Antoinette Keegan, a survivor of the Stardust disaster and a tireless advocate for justice for the past four decades, declared on Friday that the previously disregarded Stardust families will no longer be overlooked. Her remarks were made in anticipation of a forthcoming discussion with Taoiseach Simon Harris. Ms Keegan, who tragically lost her sisters Mary, aged 19, and Martina, aged 16, in the catastrophic fire named the Stardust, expressed the families’ desire to receive an apology for their enduring “43 years of unwarranted, state-sanctioned mistreatment.”
With vehemence, she spoke of how the families were well aware in 1981 that what had happened to them and the deceased during the disaster was illegal. Regardless, their cries for justice were not only overlooked, but they were also branded as liars and lunatics. Refuting these claims, she proclaimed, they weren’t insane, but deeply grieved. She stressed that from the outset, they had been consistent in truth-telling, through letters, documents, and correspondence. They refuse to be overlooked anymore.
Now 58 years old, she said she hasn’t truly lived since being an 18-year-old witness to the disaster. She said their fight will continue until the State acknowledges how it wronged her. She, along with around 40 others who also lost family members during the tragedy, has scheduled a meeting with the Taoiseach at Government Buildings on Saturday morning, a place known for offering many disappointments to the Stardust families.
In January of 2009, Ms Keegan demanded the release of the Coffey report during a four-day sit-in at a security hut with her late mother, Christine Keegan, and Gertrude Barrett, whose son Michael, aged 17, also died in the fire. In December 2008, then barrister Paul Coffey (currently a High Court judge) had stated in his report that the 1981 Tribunal of Investigation’s conclusion that the fire was likely due to arson, beginning on a seat in the venue’s West alcove, was not reliable. He recommended that the word ‘arson’ be expunged from public records – which was accomplished by the Houses of the Oireachtas in that year.
Although the removal of implied culpability from their deceased relatives brought relief to the families, it also resulted in the absence of a reason for the fire. Persistently, the families accumulated further evidence, notably that the blaze originated in the roof space before being identified on a chair. The recent inquiries corroborated this.
Their findings were evaluated by Pat McCartan, a retired judge, in 2017. His extensive report, which comprised 49 pages, concluded that no additional investigation was deemed “necessary”. This outcome was a bitter pill for the families to swallow, and many saw it as a potential terminus for their endeavours.
Nonetheless, Antoinette Keegan presented a differing perspective when she faced the press outside government premises in November 2017. “If they believe that this will zone us out, preventing us from moving ahead, they are sorely mistaken. Because we have no intention of giving up,” she declared.
Since 1981, she, alongside others, had been relentlessly pursuing the issue. Even during the aftermath of the Stardust fire on the morning of February 14th that year, survivors, as well as residents of Artane and nearby localities, recognised that the fatalities occurred largely because the youngsters were unable to evacuate the building as it was rapidly consumed by fire.
They realised that exit doors were either locked or obstructed in some way; that the structure’s front windows were sealed with metal plates and bars; that the fire had spread extraordinarily fast up the walls covered in carpet tiles; and that no staff member received any training or equipment to react in the face of such a disaster.
Following the setback caused by the McCartan report, an election brochure from then MEP Lynn Boylan sparked Ms Barrett’s optimism that the families might find justice outside Ireland.
Upon returning Ms Barrett’s call from Cairo, where she was working on the Ibrahim Halawa case with Belfast-based lawyer Darragh Mackin, Ms Boylan extended an invitation to the families to visit Strasbourg and introduced them to Mr Mackin.
Drawn from his experience participating in legacy queries in Northern Ireland, which included the 2018 Ballymurphy inquests into the deaths of 10 victims who were killed during a British military operation in west Belfast in August 1971, Mackin deemed that a coroner’s court would serve as an appropriate setting for the Stardust families seeking justice. The 1982 inquests had each lasted approximately 15 minutes, and verdicts were primarily based on medical evidence.
In a plea to Séamus Woulfe, the then attorney general, Mr Mackin contended that the initial inquiries did not serve as a satisfactory strategy for probing the fatalities’ origins. Susan Behan, the sister of deceased John Colgan, stated that the State deepened their sorrow, pain and loss by showing indifference towards them.
In agreement with Mr Mackin, Mr Woulfe, in September 2019, decided that new inquests should take place. His reason was that the circumstances surrounding the fatalities, especially the fire’s causes, were disregarded during the initial inquests.
The reopened inquests, which started in April 2023, ended last Thursday, with all 48 victims declared unlawfully killed. Maurice Frazer, whose sibling Thelma Frazer succumbed in the fire, will gather at Government Buildings this Saturday with other affected families. He insists on an apology which must acknowledge the immense pain inflicted on them and the complete lack of respect shown to the deceased and their families.
Susan Behan, too, hopes to convey to Mr Harris, her yearning for recognition that grave injustice has been served. She states that they were completely ignored by the State, which greatly compounded their emotional suffering. She hopes that any forthcoming apology will acknowledge the additional hardship endured by the parents of the victims, such as Gertrude Barrett and Christine Keegan, who spent their lives fighting for justice, only to not live long enough to see the outcomes.