Stardust Inquests – Day 4 – Pen Portraits

Michael Farrell

Michael was born at home on the 3rd of December 1954. And he was a bundle of joy. Even though Michael was almost five years younger than me, we became the best of friends. He would follow me around the house. He was like my shadow.

Every Saturday at home, my job was to clean the house before I went anywhere. I did not like that, but Michael would stay in and help me – for a price! His fee was six-pence. Of course, he put music on and we would clean the house while dancing around to the Bee Gees – which made the cleaning fun.

Michael adored his family and was very close to all of us, especially our Mam. He would do anything for her: run to the corner shop for milk and bread, cut the grass; anything that needed to be done, Michael would do.

Michael started his first job at the age of 14 as a helper on the trucks in Allied Bottlers, which he loved. He then moved on to driving the trucks, which he loved even more.

Michael loved pay-day. He made sure our Mam always had got what he referred to as her “wages” from it. With the rest, he would get what he needed – like new jacket, shirt and trousers, as he was very well dressed. He might get a haircut and, of course, would sometimes get a bottle of fragrance like ‘Old Spice’. Michael was dapper and always looked after his appearance.

Michael loved to socialise. He did so with some of the lads from Allied Bottlers, but mostly with his best friend Jerry. They went out whenever one of them had money or one of them could borrow the price of two pints. He loved his time out and about and would back a horse or buy a spot-the-ball competition entry. He was very lucky and would sometimes win. He also joined the pitch and putt club where he won lots of trophies and displayed them with pride.

Michael was going out with Thelma Fraser who was also killed in the Stardust fire. He met Thelma when he was 21, in her aunt’s house, four or five years before their death. Michael was 26 when he was killed in the Stardust.

I married very young, at 19. Michael used to come round all the time. He’d come over to borrow money! He used to be gas: he’d make signs behind my husband’s back, making me laugh, and would then pretend he wasn’t doing it. He would rarely sat down in the house, and would always be standing, chatting, in the doorway between the kitchen and living room. All my children loved Michael and he loved them. Michael and Thelma would often take the kids out and I used to call out after them, “Don’t bring them to the pub!”.

But they would anyway. Sometimes they would go up to Dublin airport for a day out to look at the planes or would go to the countryside. He was great with the kids. He would have made a great father himself.

He was a thinker and would write all his thoughts in his diaries – which we still have to this day.

Michael had started a job in Cadbury’s shortly before he was killed in the fire. He continued to look after our Mam with her shopping and he would take her into the city. Though he liked going out, he’d only have one or two drinks before he went home.

He liked the horse racing and was meant to travel with his pitch and putt club. He loved the Bee Gees, Bruce Lee and going dancing. He would go to the Stardust a lot with his friends.

On the night of the Stardust Fire, our brother, Pat, was in the dancing competition. I was meant to go but I couldn’t get a babysitter. Michael went to the Stardust that night to show some support for his brother in the competition. Before he went, he asked whether I would get Thelma a Valentine’s card for him.

When I went into the shop to get the card, the man in the shop was teasing me because it said ‘girlfriend’ on it. So then I said to Michael, “that’s the last Valentine’s card I am ever getting you!”. Over the years, thinking about those words has made me feel very upset.

My brother Pat was the one who informed mam that there was a fire in the Stardust. Pat was in such a panic that he couldn’t find Michael. Pat stayed around the Stardust until about 6 in the morning searching for Michael. When he informed mam, mam knocked at my door around 7 that morning and informed me about the fire.

Myself and Pat searched everywhere we thought Michael could be: at the houses of family, friends and Thelma. We then went to all the hospitals and still nothing. We searched for 3 days and that’s when we went back into the Mortuary and that’s where I was brought into a room and they showed me a watch which I knew straight away that it belonged to Michael. Life was never the same after this.

This destroyed my mam and dad and all my family knowing their son, brother and uncle was never coming home.

This brought so much anger, pain, heartache throughout our whole family especially as we never got to see Michael or to say goodbye to him. He would have made a great father himself. Even though it is now over 40 years since this happened, it still feels like yesterday. We will never get over this.

 

He would talk to us about how much he loved Thelma. He told us “She’s my soulmate” and that he was going to marry her. They died before he could have asked her.

Michael Ffrench

Michael was a legend. He was our big brother and our rock. He loved life and his family and we all loved him. Walking around our community it is heart-warming to hear everyone else who loved and respected him. He was taken in the prime of his life which devastated our whole family and community. He is loved and missed by all.

My brother Michael, there is too many good memories or remember them all. Like putting us on his crossbar and cycling to Saint Ann’s park on his yellow racer bike that he built himself. Bringing us to the adventure playground as early as a young kid himself helping with the milk and sandwiches in Saint John Vianney School. He was a legend and still sadly missed by everybody.

Michael, being the oldest, was the first to get a job. He was serving his time as an auto electrician. He was a very hard worker and worked long hours. His dinner often sat on a plate over a hot pot of water ‘til 9 or 10 at night.

He was generous with his small wage and was usually the source of any extracurricular activities we did as housekeeping money at the time was very tight.

Michael’s dream was to make life a bit easier for our Mam, both emotionally and financially. He would dance around the kitchen with her to cheer her up. I remember one week he did a lot of overtime in work and got paid fifty pounds which he handed around to all of us saying, “go on, hold it. It’s half a hundred. That’s a lot of money.”

We all looked up to him and went to him for advice and reassurance. He had good friends to whom he was very loyal and was popular in our neighbourhood with young and old.

Michael loved going to the dandelion market and we loved when he bought himself ‘Indian Ink’. It was his signature smell.

He was really into music and loved watching the countdown to number one on Top of the Pops each week. Most of the best records to this day in our family collection were bought by Michael, and his nickname “Horsey” is written on them as he used to lend them to his friends for parties or just to listen to.

Michael or “Horsey” was the big brother we all looked up to who had a way of making everything a bit better. He thought of everyone before himself. He encouraged when needed, he taught where possible and he exuded love with every breath. For him to be taken away from all who loved him has left an empty hole in all our hearts. He is still missed every day.

The memories are vivid of the chaotic devastation and helplessness we lived through following the fire. Not knowing, not truly believing the worst, wondering if a phone call would come and tell us he had been found alive. My father was told to go to the morgue go to the hospital and arrive home and be told to get back on a bus and go back to the morgue. He was his first born son and he was never officially identified. There was none or very little community support because so many of our community were in the same appalling situation as ourselves and trying to come to terms with what was to become one of the worst fire disasters in our history. It was like a nightmare that was never ending.   

I remember my Mother saying “My beautiful boy is GONE my heart is broke”. This led her to have a complete mental breakdown and saw our lives in turmoil again when she spent a long period of time in a mental institute.

 

 Our big brother was gone! We had to wait 25 yearS to be told for sure that Michael had died on that fateful night. For 25 years we waited. 25 whole years later we went through it all over again. You think 25 years is enough time to heal (time being the great healer) well let me tell you, we was not prepared for the crushing grief that hit following Michaels coffin to the alter for a second time.

Michael was our eldest brother. He was a role model for me, my brothers, sister and his friends. We cherish the memories we have of him when we were growing up. For him to be taken away from all who loved him has left a void in our hearts which will never be filled.

Flood, David – Ciarán Flood

My name is Ciarán David Flood, nephew of David Flood. I am here today to

represent Dave on behalf of his late parents, Paddy and Bernie, his brother Pat, and wider extended family. Dave, the younger of 2 sons, lived with his parents in their family home in Beaumount. Dave was a good-humoured, sociable, and typical 18-year-old. He loved dancing and going to the disco. He was a bit of a rocker, mad into the Rolling Stones. This was reflected in his love for playing the guitar, his sense of style and the Jagger swagger about him. He enjoyed going out for a drink and a game of darts, which he often played with his brother.

Dave worked in O’Neills Shoes on Talbot Street. He loved working there and dealing with the customers. He never missed a day of work and would often joke that, if he came into some money, he’d open his own shoe shop. He was in a relationship and, as a young man, he had all of life’s possibilities ahead of him.

The night of the Stardust fire, Dave came home from work, like any other night, and had a shower and something to eat. He had a few drinks with his friends before heading out. My Nanny always said she remembered him saying goodbye as he left.

My Mam and Dad were supposed to be heading to the Stardust too, but they were fortunate enough to have a bit of a falling out that evening, with the result that they didn’t go, in the end.

For the Flood family home in Beaumount, it was like any other Friday until the house phone rang later that night with word that the Stardust was on fire. Panic quickly set in and, naturally, my Grandda and my Da went looking for Dave. Searching desperately, they went to the hospitals to check if Dave had been taken there but they couldn’t find him.

Another phone call came, this time asking for family to come to the mortuary. My Granda and my Da and Mr Roche from next door went to the morgue. As my Da and Granda were overcome with grief from the situation, Mr Roche took on the burden of identifying Dave’s body for the family.

The trauma of Dave’s death left an imprint on his family and those close to him. My Nanny and Granda lost their youngest son. My Da lost his only brother. It also robbed Dave of the chance to go on to have his own family and experience being a father. The devastating way in which Dave died had – and still has – an enormous impact on his family. In the years afterwards, Dave’s memory was never far from our minds. Every February, on Dave’s anniversary we went to his graveside and listened to stories about him.

I inherited Dave’s records and, as I listened to them, I wished that I had gotten to know my uncle before his life was cut short. May he rest in peace.