As we draw to a close the 20th anniversary events marking the Hunger Strike, it is appropriate to recall that in the year 1981 another Irish tragedy occurred in Dublin. We woke up on the morning of St. Valentine's Day to learn that dozens of young people had perished in a fire at an Artane disco called the Stardust.

The death toll in the inferno reached 48 and it devastated the communities in Artane, Coolock and Donnycarney from which almost all the dead came. The Stardust was the most popular weekend nightspot for the youth of these working-class areas, where unemployment was high and facilities for young people were minimal. The dead were in their teens and early 20s. The horrific nature of their deaths and the sudden void left in families caused immeasurable pain and anguish to many more people. There were hundreds injured.

It was not smoke and flames that killed the Stardust victims. It was commercial greed and governmental neglect at local and central level. The owners of the Stardust, the Butterlys, should never have been allowed to open it in the first place. The late Patrick Butterly, a money-obsessed gombeen man if ever there was one, ran a pub on George's Quay and illegally opened a nightclub in an adjoining building, years before he opened the Stardust. It was found to be in breach of fire regulations. His son Eamon Butterly ran the Stardust and continued in his father's tradition.

From the day it opened in 1978 until the fire, Dublin Corporation never carried out a fire safety inspection in the Stardust, which was one of the largest venues in the country. An inspector who was only responsible for the electrical aspects of safety reported major breaches, including blocked exits, but no firm action was taken. Butterly admitted it was his practice to chain emergency exits, claiming that the chains were taken off on disco nights. But emergency exits were chained on the night of the fire. Rather than pay some of the unemployed people of the area to guard the exits and prevent unauthorised entry, the Butterlys guarded their precious profits with steel chains and locks that prevented people from escaping the fire.

This book has new leaked material from the Garda report to the Director of Public Prosecutions, material that did not come out at the tribunal of inquiry. Most damning is the evidence that in the weeks running up to the disaster there were warning signs in the area of the disco where the fire started. People reported excessive heat. Sparks were seen coming from the ceiling. And one chilling detail may hold the key - a taxi-driver reported seeing flames shooting from the roof of the Stardust ten minutes before flames were spotted on seating in a cordoned-off part of the venue. This would indicate that some ongoing electrical or heating problem had finally flared up, started a fire in the roofspace and the fire on the seats was a secondary outbreak.

The appalling result was 48 deaths but this was to be compounded by what followed. The tribunal report, while it slammed the flouting of fire safety by the Butterlys, found, without any supporting evidence, that the fire was 'probably' caused maliciously. The Butterlys received massive compensation. They were allowed to open licensed premises again on the site of the fire. They never expressed a syllable of remorse. The only person dragged to court was Christy Moore, when the Butterlys got a High Court injunction against his Stardust Song. The families of the victims and the survivors had to campaign for years to get compensation. But they never got justice.

Even the Stardust Memorial Park, laid out by Dublin Corporation and only opened in 1993, had to be fought for. What a sickening indictment of our society that it took the deaths of 48 young people for a working-class community to get a park with sculpture, landscaping and an all-weather pitch.

"Could the Stardust happen again? The answer is yes. It could happen any morning" - the words of Michael Fitzsimons, Chairperson of the Chief Fire Oficers' Association just last year. Fire safety standards and enforcement, and the level of support for the fire services, are still inadequate. The Stardust has faded from public memory and awareness of fire safety is abysmal.

Lest republicans feel in any way righteous about this, there are hard questions here for us too. Have we learned the lessons? We have all been at republican social functions in overcrowded venues without proper emergency exits. As organisers of such events it is our responsibility, as well as that of the owners of premises, to ensure the safety of the people we welcome to our events. Anyone charged with responsibility for public safety should read this book, learn the lessons and act accordingly.

This book sets out the facts. It is a very difficult, harrowing story to tell. I defy anyone to read it and not come away with a deep sense of anger and injustice.

BY MÍCHEÁL MacDONNCHA

Nothing new under the sun

By Ray Kavanagh


Spring, Summer and Fall is the latest book written according to the Gump Theory of Irish politics. This theory states that the author was present at, and a key participant, in, all of the events in question even though he was of minor importance. Eamon Delaney's fairly pointless An Accidental Diplomat is a fine example, now joined by this equally overrated first book by former Labour Party General Secretary Ray Kavanagh.

Kavanagh's book tells the tale of his 14 years as General Secretary for the Labour party. From receiving the job, (by default, when the chosen applicant made a lamentable media gaff) through the wilderness of the early Spring years, to the 1992 General Election and the slump afterwards, Kavanagh, so he tells it, held the party together with seer-like vision and an iron clad devotion to principle.

Observant readers will note we've been down here before. Fergus Finlay's Snakes and Ladders tells pretty much the same story, barely mentions Kavanagh and mysteriously gives credit for the Labour Party's 'accomplishments' to, well, Fergus Finlay.

Kavanagh clearly feels more than a little bitter at being denied his place in the sun and large parts of his book are devoted to taking swipes at Spring's Kitchen Cabinet but his attacks are the limp wristed jabs of a political featherweight against the heaving heavyweight bulk of the Pat Magners, Fergus Finlays and Sally Clarkes of the Labour Party.

Part of the reason for this is the nature of the book's layout. There just isnb't enough space for Kavanagh to pour out 14 years worth of bitterness. Whole issues get small one page or one and a half page treatment. Labour's impact on the North and Kavanagh's analysis of Sinn Féin, a very positive one in fairness, gets less than a full page. Accounts of the difficulties of the merger with Democratic Left, something Finlay was unable to add to his book, are brief and cursory. The reader learns nothing new.

That's probably the book's greatest weakness. If you're going to write a warts and all account of life in the Irish Labour Party putting in some revelations is an idea well worth considering. We are told that Dick Spring is hard to work with and occasionally bad-tempered. He reveals there was tension in Labour during the Robinson presidency campaign and so on and so forth. All statements of the blindingly obvious told, and told better, by Finlay.

Possibly one of the reasons for this is the length of the book. It's actually fairly short, even shorter than it appears once the layout and design is taken into account. You can't help but feel that he doesn't have much to actually say and once finished the reader is left vaguely dissatisfied and feeling ripped off. Much like the aftermath of a Labour Party government, come to think of it.

There are a couple of nice touches though. The photographs, especially of Labour's backroom people, are interesting enough and he is more informative on the Labour Party's campaign to drive out Militant Tendency than was Finlay. His accounts of the minutiae of the role of General Secretary and the day to day crises that appear, especially their financial problems in the '80s, make for interesting reading and some of the anecdotes will drag out a smile or two.

My favourite anecdote deals with the decision of a Labour Party councillor in Carlow/Kilkenny to drop his pants and show Nick, husband of Mary Robinson, his newly scarred backside during the Robinson campaign. The rural wing and the D4 wing of the Labour Party colliding.

It's also well worth reading for Labour members who might hold some surreal worldview of Quinn as a radical leader. His passionate desire to go into government with anyone, even Fianna Fáil, is something delegates to last week's national conference would do well to remember when the votes are counted and it's Bertie or opposition.

So overall, Sping, Summer and Fall is a disappointing and shallow effort that never really gets off the ground. Labour seem to be convinced, and Finlay says as much, that Labour changed the face of Ireland in the '90s with the Robinson election and their role in government from 1992 to 1997. Finlay and Kavanagh are battling over who should take the credit for this illusory 'victory', but before the battle gets decided in favour of the party (Kavanagh's view) or the handlers (Finlay's view) there is one more book on the subject to look forward to.

No doubt once liberated from his position as an elected representative for North Kerry by the ever helpful Martin Ferris, Dick Spring will put pen to paper and claim his rightful place in the sun. But no matter how hard he tries, I doubt Mr Spring will be able to sum up the Labour party as accurately, or as succinctly, as Sinn Féin TD Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin did at the party's recent Ard Fheis: "They'd be dead, if only they had wit enough to stiffen."

BY JUSTIN MORAN

Irish revolutionary memoirs

Joe Good's memoirs were originally penned in 1946 but only recently published with an introduction by Tim Pat Coogan. This is an account of one man's involvement in the Irish people's revolutionary struggle in the early part of the 20th century. Joe Good was of London-Irish extraction and became involved with the Irish Volunteers there in 1914. It was there that he became familiar with Michael Collins and it is clear throughout the whole book that he respected him immensely. He even compares Collins to a Lincoln or a Moses, such is his admiration.

In 1916, he came to Ireland to evade conscription in the British war effort and "take part in a better fight". He said of the country he left that "I shall never return, for the British are not my people and their gods are not my gods". He enlisted with the Volunteers in Dublin and along with Collins was stationed as part of the Kimmage garrison. During the Easter Rising, he operated around the O'Connell Street and the GPO area and he gives a very vivid account of this momentous week. Following the defeat of the Rising, he deals with the subsequent internment of the revolutionaries after the execution of their leaders. While interned, he became a trusted associate of Collins and following the amnesty a few months later, he and his comrades once again set about the task of liberating Irish people from the shackles of British imperialism.

This reorganisation involved the revitalisation of Sinn Féin, the participation and winning of by-elections, the funeral of Thomas Ashe, the rebuilding and formation of the IRA, the conscription crisis of 1917 and the pivotal 1918 General Election. This would eventually culminate in the Anglo-Irish or Tan War of 1919 to 1921. In 1918, he was part of a hand picked team to assassinate members of the British government, a plan on which this memoir throws much new light. During this phase of military conflict, he travelled around the country and worked as a part-time electrician while involved in the reorganisation of the IRA. As the war escalated, he became a full-time activist.

The book ends with the Truce of 1921. The subsequent negotiations and the Civil War are not dealt with. However, it is a historical fact that he fought with the Free State forces in the Civil War, such was his confidence in Collins. It is quite possible that he was involved in the atrocities that the Free State forces committed, but this does not take away from the fact that by his own terms, he was a committed republican in the Collins tradition. This is more than can be said for the later Fine Gael.

These memoirs are in similar vein to the better known memoirs of Tom Barry's Guerrilla Days in Ireland and Dan Breen's My Fight for Irish Freedom with their emphasis on military exploits. While there can be little doubt that Joe Good was a courageous individual with a keen sense of survival, his political analysis doesn't strike one as being well developed. Nonetheless, much of his account is laced with intelligent observations and it is a valid historical source.

BY CATHAL Ó MURCHÚ