There are stories all over the streets of Dublin. Outside the Tara Street Dart Station there is a monument universally overlooked except by those most desperately bored of waiting for a #5 or #7 bus to come by. On that spot, a worker fell down a manhole and was swept away, unconscious. A policeman bravely leapt in to the rescue. He sacrificing his own life in a selfless attempt to save the fellow, both men being overcome by the poisonous sewer gasses. That was in 1905. Dublin’s history stretches more than 1000 years, so just about every kerbside or doorstep that a traveller will pass, just walking up the street, has its drama to tell.
Most tourist guides feature the history behind the major monuments, big ol’ Daniel O’Connell standing at the heart of the city, the Parnell monument just up O'Connell street there by the Gate Theater, the Garden of Remembrance right around the corner, beside the Rotunda Hospital. I’d like to share a story not often told, of a monument well-off the beaten track on the city’s Northside.
Gateway Computers’ European Headquarters is located in the Clonshaugh Industrial Estate. Clonshaugh is that bit of the Northside where every plane coming in to Dublin Airport sounds like it's going to crash right on top of the house. One farmer has yet to sell out; moos from cows mix with the shouts of hundreds of kids, playing pick-up soccer in the street until way past 11 at night and littering like mad. The outdoor scenes of The Snapper were filmed right around there.
The same #27 bus that would take me right past what I’m sure is the actual Snapper house each day would also take me past a strange little park. Stretched out for about a half a mile between the little Santry River and blocks of old housing estates, a thin green stretch of land hosts a circle of statues. One day it deserved a closer look: over the paths and past the swings, a circle of happy teens are frozen in mid-dance. A sign proclaims that this is the Stardust Memorial.
The Stardust Disco was a popular nightspot in nearby Artane, twenty years ago. Des and Colm and Gerry, lads now pushing forty, remember going there with the chicks who are now their wives. There was always a queue to get in, and inside the Stardust was always "absolutely black with people," as they say in Dublin. Music, dancing, cute babes, gossip, naggons of vodka or two-litre bottles of cider to be drinking underage out back. Every city or town has a place like it.
On 14 February 1981, the Stardust was having a special Valentine’s Day dance. The club was reportedly even more packed than usual. Suddenly there was screaming and a rush of bodies that knocked everyone flat. Flames shot across the ceiling. Through the smoke and panic, sirens still far off, kids pressed for the doors and emergency exits. But the doors would not open; they had been chained and padlocked shut, and there was no way to get back out the front. Forty-eight young people died in that inferno, with hundreds more lying injured before the news cameras outside.
Artane was the borough of Ireland’s then-Taioseach, Charlie Haughey. ("Taioseach" is Irish for "Chieftain," or Prime Minister.) The government opened a massive investigation and held long tribunals: why had the emergency exits been chained shut? Why hadn’t adequate fire safety measures been used in the building? Who had allowed the criminal neglect of standards to occur? A wave of laws, regulations, and measures were instituted after the Stardust Tragedy. These remain on the books, and the memory of the disaster is still vivid. From time to time, vigilant cries are heard in the national newspapers, pressing for redoubled enforcement in one club or another. No similar tragedy has occurred these last 20 years.
And the tribunals? Rich people in Ireland, as in America, get to weasel out of their misdeeds. The only person to be dragged before the court and to receive an injunction was the folk singer Christy Moore. His critical protest song about the Stardust tragedy, "They Never Came Home" is apparently still banned to this day. In fairness, all of Haughey’s misdeeds are coming to light now, and there’s an expensive tribunal trying to trace all the illicit payments he received from property developers and department store owners. He’ll get out of it due to ill health, just like Pinochet and that East German Stasi chief who just croaked. It’s heartening that "The Boss"’s reputation is shot for all history, at least.
I hope the schoolbooks allocate that period’s coverage to the 48 promising young lives lost. Their story deserves to be remembered to future Irish kids.
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