In the early portion of my teaching career, I spent several years teaching in structures known as portable classrooms. A portable classroom is a building that is brought onto a school site when the student population of the school has grown too large to safely function within the confines of the main school building. A portable classroom is a self-contained small building that is usually large enough to hold 20-30 students and their desks and tables, with a few shelves, coat racks and closets for storage. A portable classroom can be a fine place to teach and to learn as a school family. The only problem I ever truly had while teaching in such spaces was a lack of room to display the work that the children were producing. Ordinarily, the interior of a classroom is used to honour the efforts of students by proudly displaying their paintings, craftwork, stories, mathematical calculations and other bits of work on which they were able to display their knowledge and understanding of the concepts we were discussing at the time. Having students know that their efforts were valued and deemed to be important is one way of helping to create a positive workspace for all. Today’s story about the Stardust Nightclub begins with a story from my teaching career with regard to displaying student work. The connection may seem tenuous at first because obviously, a classroom is not a nightclub. However, in many respects, there are more similarities than not. Both are public spaces where people gather. Both are spaces in which there is movement of bodies and the introduction of all sorts of different materials into the space. Finally, both a classroom and a nightclub are spaces for which there are many standard legal safety rules in place. Today’s story showcases the distinction between when those safety rules are adhered to and when they are not and the consequences that arise from not following safety codes properly.
As mentioned, I liked teaching in portable classrooms. My only real issue was the lack of display and storage space. Early in my career I attempted to get around this lack of display space by erecting a clothesline system that criss-crossed the classroom from corner to corner in the shape of a giant “X”. From these cords I would hang artwork or posters created by my students. It helped give the space a bit of an art gallery feel. I was pleased to have the work up for all to see and the kids seemed happy to see their work being displayed, too. However, in all schools there are safety codes. In the schools that I worked at, there were safety teams composed of members of the school administration, teachers and of support staff, too. Once or twice a year, the people on these committees would walk through the school and take note of any safety concerns that may have been apparent. One particular year the safety team visited our portable classroom. Right away mention was made of the airborne art gallery I had set up. I was told that it violated established safety guidelines and would have to come down immediately. When I questioned that ruling, it was explained to me that should a fire start in our classroom, having flammable objects hanging in the space above our heads was a recipe for disaster. Because the safety of my students was always my number one priority, I quickly saw the folly of my ways and took the clothesline display system down. The room didn’t look as pretty and homey anymore but, admittedly, it was now a safer place for all of us to be. Safety rules are put in place for a reason. I didn’t like it at the time but removing those overhead pieces of art was the right thing to do. Now that I am retired, I can proudly point out that I never had a single fire or any other incident of a safety nature happen even one time in thirty years of teaching. The children came to school each day and always safely returned home later in the day. Each and every day. They always came home again.
A classroom may not be a nightclub but both spaces house people and things and both are subject to legally defined safety codes. In my case, I followed the rules and everyone stayed safe. Today’s story is about a time when those same rules were not followed and the consequences of those actions/inactions. The Stardust Nightclub was located on the site of a former food factory in Artane, Ireland, which is a working class suburb of Dublin. The food factory had been purchased by a family named Butterly. The Butterlys renovated the factory and converted it into several public spaces containing a dining hall, a nightclub and several smaller rooms that were used for parties, meetings and private functions. On Valentine’s Day in 1981, members of a trade union had booked the dining hall for a function. Next door, young lovers in search of romance came to the nightclub. A Disco-themed party had been arranged. The event became a sold-out affair. Almost all of the ticket holders that night were under the age of twenty-five. Like all public licensed establishments, the Stardust Nightclub complex was subject to a battery of building and safety codes. As the evening began, all cleaning products were safely stored away in locked storage rooms away from where paying customers could encounter them. The nightclub also had the proper number of mandatory fire exits, as well as windows that could open and close and could serve as escape routes in case of a fire. However, while those statements were true on paper, in practice a different reality existed. One of the problems the owners of the Stardust Nightclub constantly faced was one where a young couple or a few friends would pay the cover charge levied at the front doors. They would then enter the nightclub and immediately open the fire exit doors in the back to sneak in scores of their friends for free. Because of how rampant this behaviour was, the owners of the nightclub had taken to either chaining the fire exit doors shut or else barricading those doors with tables and chairs and other furniture. As well, being a nightclub meant that music was played loudly until the wee hours of the morning. In order to muffle the sound levels, noise dampening material was installed along the ceiling and the walls. Much of this material turned out to be highly flammable. Finally, the electrical system used in the Stardust Nightclub was organized in such a way that it was unprotected from dangers such as fire.
Much like how I was told that my clothesline art gallery was a “recipe for disaster”, the actual safety standards at the Stardust Nightclub were a recipe for disaster, too. Unfortunately for the many in attendance and their families at home, that disaster struck on the evening of Valentine’s Day, 1981. A fire of undetermined origin, but one believed to have started in the cleaning supply storage room or perhaps, the electrical room, began late into the evening. Over 800 people were in the building when the fire began. Because the storage room was away from the public eye, the fire was allowed to grow to a considerable size before almost anyone inside of the building even knew it was happening. The fire spread to the roof of the building first. Soon burning material from the roof began to fall through the ceiling of the rooms below. The trade unionists in the dining hall were able to recognize what was happening and evacuate in an orderly fashion. However, in the nightclub area, the sound dampening material quickly burst into flames. The electrical wiring for the light system went out in quick fashion, leaving the hundreds of patrons in smoky, toxic darkness. Those who knew where the emergency exits were scrambled there only to find the doors locked and chained. The many windows had long since been covered with bars and metal grills to protect from break-ins. The only real exit available to patrons was the doorway at the front. Needless to say, a bottleneck soon developed. Many people were trampled. In the darkness, many others mistook the bathroom doors for the main doors and wound up trapping themselves inside the bathrooms. By the time that firefighters had arrived and the fire was brought under control, a total of forty-eight revellers were dead and over two hundred were injured.
A commission of inquiry was quickly formed. Those in charge of it declared that the fire was caused by arson. This ruling was not based on any real evidence. The consequence of the arson ruling was to deflect liability charges away from the Butterly family who owned and operated the nightclub. Not only were the Butterlys not held responsible for any criminal liability on their part but, because the official cause of the fire was arson, they were actually able to apply for compensation themselves. Needless to say, the families of the victims were outraged. They rejected the ruling of the Commission of Inquiry and demanded further investigations from the government. Being working class families for the most part, they did not have the financial clout to hire high powered legal representation. However, they did have one ally of note in the form of a man named Christy Moore.
Christy Moore is a legendary Irish folk singer. He has been a leading figure in the Irish music world for over a half century now. He is so beloved that in 2009, Moore was voted as the top singer in Irish music history, which is no small feat coming from a land that has produced the likes of Van Morrison, Sinead O’Connor, U2, The Pogues, Ewan McColl and many other tremendous talents. In Canada, Moore would be the equivalent of the likes of Stan Rogers or Gordon Lightfoot. In America, he would be held in esteem similar to Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger or Woody Guthrie. Christy Moore was a folk singer who often promoted/supported Irish nationalist causes. For example, he was someone who publicly rallied behind famous I.R.A. hunger striker Bobby Sands. Needless to say, Christy Moore was someone who was never shy about airing his opinion on public/political matters, especially if those opinions went against the views of people in power. So when the Stardust Nightclub fire happened and word of the conditions inside the club that patrons were forced to deal with came to light, Christy Moore decided to help the families by writing and recording a song about it all. The song was called “They Never Came Home”. The song was included on a hastily recorded album called Ordinary Man. In the song, Christy Moore included the following lyrics:
“Hundreds of children were injured and maimed,
And all just because the fire exits were chained”.
When the song became public, the lyrics pointedly concluded that the deaths of the lost 48 people were caused by the willful negligence of the building’s owners who had locked the fire exit doors. While the locking of the fire exit doors was common practice, as well as being common knowledge among many, the official report had cleared the Butterly family of wrongdoing. So when Christy Moore publicly sang to the contrary and actually levelled public charges of his own through his song, he ended up being charged with Contempt of Court. Not only was he fined for his actions but a judge ruled that all copies of his album Ordinary Man had to be recalled. The judge further ruled that Moore would have to remove “They Never Came Home” from the album before he would be allowed to re-release it to the general public.
As was made very clear, there can be a high price to pay for those who dare to criticize people and organizations in power. With Christy Moore’s protest quashed, it was left to the families to fight on. Luckily, several investigative journalists agreed to take a closer look at the evidence and to make their own findings known. In time, with the help of several documentaries on the matter, public opinion rose up again in support of the aggrieved families. A new Commission of Inquiry was struck not too long ago. This commission found that arson could not be conclusively proven and, as such, they ruled that the cause of the fire was actually undetermined. As well, a memorial garden was erected nearby that lists the name of all 48 of the victims.
I would like to be able to say that The Stardust Nightclub fire was an outlier but sadly it is not. In the past century, there have been dozens and dozens of similar tragedies in nightclubs, speakeasies and dining halls around the world. The death toll in this Irish tragedy seems unbelievably high….it certainly devastated an entire community in its wake…but the number of victims in this fire barely makes the top ten in history. Overall, over one thousand people have died around the world in fires that have happened in nightclubs. In almost all of those cases, investigators discovered that exit doors had been willfully locked and that highly flammable sound absorption materials were used throughout the establishments in question.
My classroom was certainly not a money making venture. The safety of the students under my care was always my highest priority. That was not the case in the Stardust Nightclub or in other similar establishments around the world throughout history. The quest for money and increased levels of profits can skew priorities when it comes to public safety. All throughout the course of this tragedy, money and class also played roles that ended up costing lives and distorting justice in the aftermath. If it had not been for the dogged determination of the families, along with the assistance of journalists and public advocates such as Christy Moore, it remains doubtful as to whether justice would have ever been served at all. There is a price to be paid by those who tweak the noses of the powerful. However, in my opinion for what that is worth, there is a greater price to pay for allowing injustice to flourish unchallenged. God Bless the victims and their families of the Stardust Nightclub fire.
Speaking out is never easy at the best of times. Today, this is even more relevant because the times we find ourselves in are certainly far from the best. In my last post, which you can read here, I wrote about the Irish band Fontaines D.C. and their desire to promote Irish history and language through their music. Today, we saw how the class system often favours the rich and powerful and how speaking out publicly, as Christy Moore did in Ireland, can exact a high personal and professional price. In the third and final post in this Irish-themed trilogy, we will look at one of the most important things happening in the world of the Arts today and that is the story of a band called Kneecap. Get ready. This is an epic story that is unfolding in real time. Until then, hug the ones you love and always do right by others. Love is all that really matters in the end. Thanks for reading my words. Take care.
The link to the video for a documentary about the Stardust Nightclub fire called The Stardust Nightclub Fire: One of Ireland’s Darkest Days can be found here.
The link to the video for a performance by Christy Moore of his song “They Never Came Home” can be found here.
The link to the official website for Christy Moore can be found here.
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