Eamonn Loughman (18), Beaumont - ‘He looked after me, played ball with me. He gave me crossers on his racer’

The inquests into the deaths of the 48 young people who died in the Stardust fire in Artane, Dublin in 1981 feature pen portraits of each of the deceased, read by bereaved family members. Find all of the portraits and more coverage here.

Elaine (sister)

My brother Eamonn was born in 1962, the firstborn of Jack and Maureen. John came second in 1964, Eoin in 1966, Niamh in 1967, Elaine in 1969, Andrew in 1973 and Anne in 1977.

He looked after us and protected us so much. He would help us get ready in the morning and round us up... for all meals.

He kept an eye on us all and he would be giving out if we were playing up. He would tell us when we are being good and stopped the rest of his siblings fighting. I remember being out playing and Eamonn would go off playing on his bike with his friends but would come back and check on us all the time.

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Eamonn would sometimes pick me up from school in the Cortina he and our dad bought together. My friends would be envious of me getting my big brother to pick me up from school.

I wrote the poem below roughly one year after I lost my brother. I was 13 years old. I have never shared these words beyond my immediate family, this could be considered as my original pen portrait for Eamonn Loughman.

‘I loved him oh I really did

He treated me like his little kid

At night I always cry and cry

Oh why did he have to die?

He was so good and kind to me

But he would hurt nobody

We loved each other all the time

He was a great brother of mine

All the time I want to cry

Sometimes I wish I would die,

Eamonn was my brother’s name

Without him it is not the same

Now he is looking over me

And I hope that he will always be’

Eoin (brother)

Eamonn was my older brother, I remember him always looking after us. He would often tell us to be good for Mam. Eamonn played with us and kept us in line. I used to love when he would come home with a new record to play.

Anne (sister)

I remember my mam talking about Eamonn and telling me how much he loved me. I loved to listen to stories about him. She told me about when she came home from the hospital and Eamonn, who was 16 at the time, took me off her and sat holding on to me for hours. I never got to grow up with the love from my big brother.

Andrew (brother)

As I was seven at the time, my memories of my brother Eamonn are few but vivid. To me he was the older, three-piece suit wearing, working, driving, man brother. He was an adult, sophisticated. He looked after me, played ball with me. He was a big Leeds United fan. He gave me crossers on his racer.

As a child growing up it was devastating to see your mother and father’s hearts broken. At the time when I was young I didn’t understand but it was very upsetting to see the drinking that occurred. I knew what was going to happen once they bought alcohol. I used to sneak in and pour some of the alcohol from the vodka bottle down the sink. Vodka and lemon was their favourite.

It could be terrible. They would drink and blame each other on everything, it was heartbreaking. It wasn’t their fault, how they dealt with life after that day.

Eamonn was never identified at the time, which as a parent is horrifying to think. So she [my mam] never really got closure. She hung on to the belief that he could be alive, she believed for years that he could have banged his head, lost his memory and was out and about lost somewhere. She believed he was going to turn up one day. We never really spoke about it as a family as we had no help with it.