Remembering the Dromcollogher fire

Sir, – On the afternoon of February 13th, 1981, my school junior soccer team was returning to south Dublin after playing a match in Chanel College, Coolock. As our team bus passed the Stardust nightclub, little could I have imagined the tragic events that would unfold there over the next few hours.

I revisited the memory of the Stardust tragedy when I visited Dromcollogher, Co Limerick, for the first time in 1993. There I learned of the mass grave of 46 of the 48 victims of the cinema fire that are buried in the grounds of St Bartholomew’s Church.

On Sunday, September 5th, 1926 many of those who lost their lives in the Dromcollogher cinema fire would have attended benediction in the church before heading for the novel experience of the silver screen.

Local hackney driver William Forde had arranged a screening of Cecil B DeMille’s classic, The Ten Commandments, in a loft. An estimated 150 men, women and children climbed the ladder to reach the loft, the sole means of entry and 12ft above a hardware store.

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At about 10pm one of the two lit candles in the room fell on to the highly flammable nitrate film reels causing a dense mass of smoke and fumes. A series of small fires soon developed into an inferno.

Some closest to the entrance escaped but only about half a dozen close to the screen managed to get out through a rear window before it became blocked.

The ages of those who perished ranged from John Kenny, seven, to Mary Turner, 68.

Both tragedies, in the Stardust nightclub and in Dromcollogher, should be included in schools’ history curriculum. – Yours, etc,

FRANK BURKE,

Terenure,

Dublin 6

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