A doorman at the Stardust nightclub, in which 48 young people died in a fire in 1981, had “the impression” there was to be “some involvement of other people” in how Garda statements would be “formulated” in the aftermath of the tragedy.
John Furley, who was 23 at the time of the disaster, told inquests into the deaths on Tuesday, he “worked it out” that emergency exits were being locked at the venue until as late as midnight, on disco nights, in the weeks before the fire.
Fresh inquests into the deaths of the 48, aged between 16 and 27, at the north Dublin venue in the early hours of February 14th, 1981, are being held following a 2019 recommendation from then attorney general Séamus Woulfe.
Mr Furley said he had left his job at the Stardust in 1980, but returned just after Christmas that year. Before he left there was a policy of draping chains and locks over emergency exit push-bars to give the impression they were locked, to stop people letting friends in without paying.
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A number of incidents indicated to him that doors were being kept locked-up, on Friday and Sunday nights when discos were held, as late as midnight.
These included, about three weeks before the fire, finding an emergency exit “kicked out” but not opened because it was chained and padlocked.
About two weeks before the blaze, he said, head doorman Tom Kennan, at about midnight had told him people were trying to get in without paying through exit doors. “He told me, ‘Don’t worry about it. The doors are locked’,” Mr Furley told the inquests.
He told Brenda Campbell, KC for families of nine of the dead, he did not question Mr Kennan on this, despite knowing it contravened a recent warning from Dublin Corporation against locking emergency exits.
“It was the type of place, it was a part-time job, you came in, you done it and went home,” he said.
Later he was asked about a meeting of staff at the Silver Swan pub, part of the Stardust complex, the morning after the fire. He agreed all senior management were there, and that they were told the solicitor for the manager, Eamonn Butterly, would be talking to them before they made statements to gardaí later that day.
Bar manager Brian Peel told them they were not to talk to media, and reminded them they “were in the service of the employer”, the inquests heard.
Mr Furley did not recall making a statement to Mr Butterly’s solicitor, but agreed significant details were absent from the note of that conversation, including about the difficulty he had encountered opening one of the exits on the night, at a “critical” point as the blaze took hold.
Five statements
The inquests heard Mr Furley made five separate statements to gardaí in the weeks after the blaze, as he recalled further details. The fullest was made on February 20th, 1981, after an encounter at a church the evening before.
Ms Campbell read from Mr Furley’s testimony to the 1981 tribunal of inquiry into the fire. Mr Furley told the tribunal he had been approached by another doorman, Austin Bell, who told him their colleague, doorman Mick Kavanagh wanted to speak to him. Mr Bell had said the head doorman, Leo Doyle, had called to Mr Kavanagh’s house to talk to him about his (Mr Kavanagh’s) Garda statement, he told the 1981 tribunal.
Mr Bell told him Mr Doyle and another doorman, John Fitzsimons had not left the Stardust since the fire. “And he said, ‘There was money involved’,” the tribunal had heard.
The following morning he went and gave a statement to Coolock gardaí.
Asked by Ms Campbell what he understood Mr Bell to mean, he said on Tuesday: “I hadn’t a clue. Like after that statement I immediately cut off all connections with anyone, because I didn’t know what was going on.”
Asked if it was “fair that by the time you were taken to Coolock Garda station the following morning that the impression you had from Mick Kavanagh, was that there was at least some involvement of other people in how statements were to be ... formulated, or what was to be said?” he answered: “That was the impression I got, yes,” Mr Furley told the inquests.
