The twelve-member jury at the Stardust fire inquests are anticipated to commence their eleventh day of talks on Wednesday, having communicated on Tuesday that they were within reach of formulating verdicts. Dr Myra Cullinane, the Dublin coroner, clarified several queries raised by the jury on Tuesday afternoon. Specifically, they were interested in understanding the criteria needed to pronounce verdicts of unlawful killing concerning the 48 tragic casualties in the nightclub blaze.
This Wednesday is a significant date, marking one year since the jury was assembled to dissect the incidents resulting in the death of 48 individuals, aged 16 to 27, caught in the catastrophic nightclub fire in north Dublin in the early morning hours of February 14, 1981.
The mixed jury of five men and seven women have been meticulously reviewing more than 90 days of evidence pertaining to the tragic incident for approximately 40 hours. On Tuesday, Dr Cullinane reaffirmed the jury’s independence in reaching their verdict.
If the jurors were convinced about failures committed by unidentifiable perpetrators, satisfying the legal parameters for unlawful killing, they are allowed to pronounce a verdict of unlawful killing. Subsequently, the jury was requested to reconvene an hour earlier on Wednesday to discuss Dr Cullinane’s responses before updating her on their progress at 11 a.m.
The jury foreman earlier notified the court on Tuesday that they were on the brink of reaching a verdict. The jury’s duty entails establishing the identity, date, place, and cause of death for each victim and providing verdicts based directly on the factual events surrounding the fire. The verdict options available include accidental death, misadventure, unlawful killing, open verdict, or narrative verdict. They are also tasked with ascertaining information about the fire.
The inquests commenced in April 2023 post a prolonged campaign by the bereaved families. Over the course of 122 days, testimonials were gathered from 373 witnesses which comprised staff, management, nightclub patrons, members of the public who witnessed the fire, emergency services personnel, and specialists in fire and pathology.
While giving instructions to the jury panel last month, the coroner Dr Myra Cullinane emphasised that they need to be “impartial” and “methodical”, and to “suppress any emotions”, adding that there was “no rush” for them to form their final opinions.
Elaborating on the verdicts, she thoroughly briefed the parameters that the jury needed to stick within in case they were contemplating an unlawful killing verdict.
“You’ve listened to testimony about how certain operations were executed and the alternative methods they could have adopted. Several of these testimonies attempted to depict a specific sequence of occurrences,” she stated.