Shortly after 1.40pm on Thursday, journalists covering the Stardust inquests were filing lunchtime copy in the Pillar Room of the Rotunda hospital, where inquests have been under way since April. Deirdre Dames, a survivor of the 1981 fire rushed in, alerting us that someone was “after stabbing kids out there”.
RTÉ’s Conor Hunt and I, along with several others, followed her out to Parnell Square East where there were already four or five ambulances, several Dublin Fire Brigade appliances manned by paramedics and several Garda cars, as sirens blared as more arrived.
Across the road on the pavement outside Delfin English language school, a man in his 50s lay with blood around his face and chest as paramedics tended to him.
Further up towards North Frederick Street, more paramedics were working on a little girl, also lying on the pavement just a little way up from Gaelscoil Choláiste Mhuire primary school.
She appeared to be about five or six years old. A small pink backpack lay on the ground beside the scene. Her small pink or purple shoes were visible as she was lifted on to a stretcher and into an ambulance.
On steps at the doorway behind a young woman was sitting, crouched over, clearly distressed, leaning into the steps. There was blood on her back and she was helped by paramedics to her feet, on to a stretcher and into an ambulance.
Huge numbers of people still filled the footpaths as gardaí began clearing the scene, pulling ‘crime-scene’ tape across both ends of this side of the square and shouting at onlookers to stop taking photographs and video footage.
Many people were looking on from windows in the high Georgian buildings overlooking the scene as emergency services continued to arrive and medics ran from the Rotunda hospital to the scene, some carrying emergency medical kits.
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Public order unit and gardai confront protesters on Dublin's O’Connell street in the aftermath of the Parnell square stabbing attack. Photograph: Alan Betson/The Irish Times
Major public disorder erupts in Dublin in the wake of a stabbing incident that left five people hospitalised, with clashes between groups and police on Parnell Street and O’Connell Street leaving one Garda injured and a number of Garda vehicles damaged. Photograph: Chris Maddaloni/The Irish Times
A protester with flammable material alongside a Dublin Bus in Dublin city centre on Thursday night. Photograph: Alan Betson/The Irish Times
Public Order Unit and gardai confronting protesters in the aftermath of the Parnell square stabbing attack in Dublin on Thursday night. Photograph: Alan Betson/The Irish Times
Gardai confront protesters in the aftermath of the Parnell square stabbing attack in Dublin city centre. Photograph: Alan Betson/The Irish Times
Public Order Unit gardai confront protesters in Dublin city centre on Thursday night. Photograph: Alan Betson/The Irish Times
Major public disorder erupted in Dublin in the wake of a stabbing incident that left five people hospitalised, with clashes between groups and police on Parnell Street and O’Connell Street leaving one Garda injured and a number of Garda vehicles damaged. Photograph: Chris Maddaloni/The Irish Times
Gardai on Cathal Brugha Street, Dublin city centre, amid violent disorder on Thursday night after a serious stabbing incident on Parnell Square earlier in the day. Photograph: Conor Gallagher
A fire burns on O'Connell Street in Dublin amid violent disorder in the wake of a serious stabbing incident on Parnell Square earlier in the day. Photograph: Jack Power/The Irish Times
Major public disorder erupts in Dublin in the wake of a stabbing incident that left five people hospitalised, with clashes between groups and police on Parnell Street and O’Connell Street leaving one Garda injured and a number of Garda vehicles damaged. Photograph: Chris Maddaloni/The Irish Times
A rioter confronts the Garda Public Order Unit amid major public disorder in Dublin in the wake of a stabbing incident that left five people hospitalised, with clashes between groups and police on Parnell Street and O’Connell Street leaving one Garda injured and a number of Garda vehicles damaged.
Photograph: Chris Maddaloni/The Irish Times
A car burns amid major public disorder in Dublin in the wake of a stabbing incident that left five people hospitalised, with clashes between groups and police on Parnell Street and O’Connell Street leaving one Garda injured and a number of Garda vehicles damaged. Photograph: Chris Maddaloni/The Irish Times
The remains of a bus ablaze on O'Connell Street in Dublin during violent disorder in the wake of a stabbing incident on Parnell Square earlier in the day. Photograph: Jack Power/The Irish Times
Protesters confront the Garda Public Order Unit in Dublin city centre. Photograph: Colin Keegan/Collins Dublin
Confrontation on Thursday night in Dublin city centre. Photograph: Colin Keegan/Collins Dublin
A line of gardai faces off against protesters on Thursday night in Dublin city centre. Photograph: Colin Keegan/Collins Dublin
A bus and car on fire on O'Connell Street in Dublin city centre after violent scenes unfolded following an attack on Parnell Square East where five people were injured, including three young children. Photograph: Brian Lawless/PA Wire
Eyewitnesses included relatives of those who died in the Stardust, many of whom attend the inquests daily. Some had been getting fresh air and smoking cigarettes at the entrance to the Pillar Room, just across from where the incident unfolded.
Siobhán Kearney heard “screaming” and “spotted a guy with a stabbing motion across the road”, she said.
“So I took across the road and there was fellas there and they pulled the guy off the children. There was a good few kids.” The children were “between the ages of four, five and six, no older” and were “only just after finishing school”.
Major public disorder erupted in Dublin in the wake of a stabbing incident that left five people hospitalised, with clashes between groups and police on Parnell Street and O’Connell Street leaving one Garda injured and a number of Garda vehicles damaged.
Photo: Chris Maddaloni/The Irish Times
She said a number of people pulled the alleged perpetrator from “children” kicking him to the ground. “A few people were attacking [him] and me and an American girl formed a ring around the culprit and so the Garda could deal with him in due course.”
Another eyewitness, attending the inquests to support her mother who was due to give evidence on Thursday, said she went over as people were dragging the man from children.
Parnell Square East remained cordoned off by midafternoon. Ambulances and fire appliances had left, leaving the scene in the hands of numerous gardaí and detectives. Photograph: Alan Betson
“You could see the stabbing movements. It was frenzied. Someone passed me a little girl. She was hysterical...I passed her into the school. They said a girl had been stabbed.”
Ms Kearney had not seen how seriously injured the little girl was. “I just seen the blood,” she said.
She said emergency services arrived within minutes. An ambulance attended to the children and the injured girl first, with a second, along with fire appliances manned by DFB paramedics on the scene afterward.
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A man on a bike or moped took the knife from the man, she continued. “The fellah got the knife. He cut his hand – he threw it across the grass.”
The knife was described as “long” and “about ten inches”, by Ms Kearney. She said the second man tossed the knife to a grass patch under trees, across the road by the Rotunda hospital. She pointed this out to gardaí who removed it from the scene.
Parnell Square East remained cordoned off by midafternoon. Ambulances and fire appliances had left, leaving the scene in the hands of numerous gardaí and detectives.
