A COUPLE WHO lost their only child in the Stardust fire have spoken of their feelings of guilt and regret in allowing her to skip a family wedding so she could attend the dance that night.
Maurice and Phyllis McHugh also told how they often wonder if their 17-year-old daughter Caroline “called out for Mammy and Daddy for help” as the flames burned her body.
“We would think about this often in the years that followed with broken hearts,” Maurice told the inquest taking place in the Pillar room of Rotunda Hospital today.
“Caroline’s young life was cruelly taken away from her that cold February Valentine’s morning in that horrendous fireball.”
The couple, who are now in their 80s, said a day “never goes by” without them thinking of their beautiful daughter “now lying in a cold grave buried six-foot underground, marked by a black marble stone engraved with her name on it.”
Maurice said Caroline was born in the Rotunda Hospital on 1 July 1963 so it was ironic that the inquest into her death is now taking place in the same building, 42 years later.
He told the jury at the Coroner’s Court how the couple still visit Caroline’s grave once a week “without fail”, still grieving for their lost daughter “cruelly taken away from us so young”.
The pensioner said he and Phyllis often discuss “what could have been” had Caroline not died in the fire that night.
“Would she have had a successful career, got married, have children and have given us grandchildren?”
He said they feel they have “missed out on a lot” particularly around holidays like Christmas, Easter, birthdays and anniversaries when they see her cousins and their children, all the while thinking that Caroline should have been there.
“It makes us feel so sad and emotional and brings tears to our eyes,” Maurice said.
After finishing school in Loreto College, Stephen’s Green, Caroline went to college where she sang in the choir, winning many awards in the Feis Ceoil.
“The choir was later to perform at Caroline’s funeral mass with great sadness,” Maurice said.
He went on to explain how Phyllis had received an invitation to a family wedding in Manchester on Valentine’s Day 1981 and they were all due to attend.
However, a couple of weeks before the wedding Caroline told them she didn’t want to go and instead wanted to stay at home and go to the dancing competition in the Stardust with her friends.
Maurice said they were “very reluctant” to allow her to stay but her best friend’s mother offered to look after her and they agreed as they would only be gone for two nights.
“We always regretted this decision and feel guilty about it to this day,” he said.
On Friday, 13 February the couple made their way to the ferry.
“On the way, we dropped Caroline into her workplace. Little did we know that this was the last time we would see Caroline alive as she waved us off, smiling and saying ‘enjoy yourselves’ and ‘don’t do anything I wouldn’t do’ with a big smile.”
The following morning, Phyllis’s uncle came after them to say there had been a fire in the Stardust nightclub and Caroline was missing.
Maurice said the couple were “absolutely devastated” and began ringing home to family looking for an update on Caroline’s whereabouts but there was no news.
The earliest flight they could get back to Dublin was at 7pm leaving from Liverpool.
Maurice relayed how, as there were no mobile phones back then, they had to use a coin box to ring home every half an hour looking for updates on their daughter.
The only surviving family member of another Stardust victim has told how her father encouraged her 21-year-old brother to move to Dublin from Belfast to keep him “out of harm’s way” and away from the Troubles in the North at the time.
Delivering a pen portrait of James (Jim) Millar at the inquest today, his sister Laura said that decision had always come back “to haunt our dad” and he blamed himself for Jim’s death.
She told how her younger brother, Martin, who was just 12-years-old at the time, also “blamed himself” for his brother’s death as the last time he had seen Jim the pair got into a “silly argument” and as Jim walked out the door Martin shouted after him: “I wish you were dead”.
“He was only 12 years old, but he closed himself up and it was weeks before we learned what had taken place,” Laura told the jury.
She said he blamed himself for what happened right up until his death three years ago and “never got over it”.
Laura said she and her friend Patsy had been due to travel to Dublin to attend the Stardust dance competition with Jim and his friends but decided not to go when the time came.
Laura relayed how her brother had travelled the world in the Merchant Navy before returning home to Dublin to settle down and raise a family with his fiancée Marion.
When the fire was reported the next day in the paper, there was some confusion as Jim’s fiancée had phoned to say “not to worry” because Jim had said he wasn’t going.
However, at 6pm that evening, Jim’s father was at home alone when the police called to the house to tell him the unimaginable news.
“We were told his cry could be heard all over the estate,” Laura said. “So many lives were destroyed that night and to see my mum and dad going to pieces was heart-breaking.”
She said no one in the family ever got over what happened.
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