Stardust fire inquest of 'paramount importance'

Prof Phil Scraton, who led the Hillsborough Independent Panel's research team, says the fresh inquest into the Stardust fire in Dublin is of "paramount importance" to the families of victims, survivors and “the people of Ireland”.

The fire on 14 February 1981 killed 48 people who were attending a Valentine's Day event at the Stardust nightclub in north Dublin.

More than 800 people were at the disco when the fire took hold. The average age of the victims was 19.

The inquest is hearing from families, witnesses, and experts and is expected to take about six months.

"This has been a long-running sore. We are talking about over 40 years. We are talking about the number of deaths - 48 people died - so many people damaged for life," Prof Scraton told BBC Radio Ulster's Evening Extra programme.

Prof Scraton said the “denial of justice for so long" had “exacerbated suffering”.

The inquest will sit for four days a week and is expected to pause in July, before resuming in September.

Families of the victims of the fire gathered on Tuesday morning at the Garden of Remembrance in Dublin and walked the short distance to the Rotunda Hospital campus where the inquest is being held.

The inquest heard from a number of the relatives of those who died.

Earlier, a woman who lost her two sisters in the worst fire tragedy in the Republic's history, said her family was "overwhelmed with joy and sadness" at the inquest's opening.

Antoinette Keegan said it meant "an awful lot to me and my family".

She was pulled unconscious from the blazing Stardust nightclub - her sisters, Martina aged 16 and 19-year-old Mary, both died.

"Finally after all these years - 42 years - the inquest is actually starting," Ms Keegan told BBC Radio Foyle's The North West Today.

"Both my parents, John and Christine Keegan, put an awful lot of effort into this and it consumed their lives to get truth and justice put on public record."

Ms Keegan said she hoped to get "the finding of fact on how and why our loved ones died".

"We have waited for this day for so long, but it is a disgrace it has taken us 42 years to get to this point," she said.

The inquest, in front of coroner Dr Myra Cullinane, is reported to be the biggest in Irish history.

An original inquest into the fire in 1982 lasted only five days and recorded the cause of the deaths in accordance with medical evidence, with no reference to the circumstances or the cause of the fire.

A tribunal held in the year following the fire, chaired by Justice Ronan Keane, was labelled flawed and its conclusion was contested by the victims' families.

It concluded the cause of the fire was "probably arson".

In 2009 an independent examination into the tribunal reported there was no evidence to support Justice Keane's finding that the fire was started deliberately near the ballroom of the nightclub.

After a long campaign by the Stardust families, in 2019 then attorney general Seamus Woulfe directed that new inquests take place.

An inquest jury was selected last week.

Three of those who died were from Northern Ireland: Susan Morgan from Londonderry, and James Millar and Robert Hillock from Twinbrook, in west Belfast.

Professor Phil Scraton led the Hillsborough Independent Panel's research team