Michael Griffiths (18), from Kilmore, was a happy and outgoing guy who loved sports and music, but most of all he loved his family, spending his first ever pay cheque bringing them all to the cinema.
Introduction
My name is Paul. I am the third sibling in a family of seven consisting of my father, mother, Michael, Jacqueline, myself, Mark and June.
Background
Michael was the eldest of five siblings. He was a very happy outgoing person with a great love for family. He was someone you could rely on and look up to.
He loved family occasions like birthdays, and when younger, would always be the first to drag us out of bed on Christmas morning to get the day started.
We never had to ask If Michael was home because you could hear him either laughing or playing music, singing at the top of his voice, with Elvis being one of his favourites. Michael also loved sport and was an avid Spurs fan.
Michael had a great work ethic and a generous nature. I can remember when he was about sixteen on the occasion of receiving his first pay cheque, instead of going out and spending it on himself, he took us all to the cinema.
Michael had a great relationship with our father and Mother, brothers, sisters and an endless number of friends, both male and female, consisting of school pals, neighbours and work colleagues. They would meet like any teenagers of the day to talk, play music, play sport, plan nights out. Michael was probably too young to know exactly what he wanted but I have no doubt whether it was family or work life he had a great future to look forward to.
My last memory of Michael was after just celebrating our father's forty-third birthday. Michael went upstairs and came back down a little while later full of life ready for a night out in the Stardust night club for Valentine’s. He said goodbye and walked out the door.
Stardust Fire
The next thing I remember is being woken up in the early hours of the morning to the sound of the front door being banged and my sister Jackie who was also in the Stardust, her face blackened by smoke, screaming that there had been a fire at the club, and she couldn’t find Michael.
My father and mother, then panicking, jumped into the car with my sister and drove to the Stardust to find out more. They said what they found was utter carnage, but they were kept away by the fire service. They couldn’t find Michael and were told to check the list of hospitals. After spending the day driving around all the hospitals on the list to no avail, they were told to check the city morgue.
With great reluctance, that is what they did, and it was then they discovered Michael had died. They had to identify him by a ring he was wearing.
They then had to come home and break the news to us. By this time, friends and family had gathered in the house waiting and when my father and mother told us the bad news there was total devastation. By the outpouring of grief, you could tell we had lost someone very special.
Since then
After the funeral, family life was never the same. It became for us a time of firsts. The first of our family to die. The first time I saw my mother truly grief stricken. The first time I saw my father cry. Michael’s first Birthday since his death. First Christmas without him. The first family photographs without him. The first anniversary of Michael’s death.
Conclusion
We don’t know exactly what Michael’s future held but we will never know his wife, or his children. Our families will never know their nieces, nephews or cousins and my father and mother will never know their grandchildren.
After another inquest, let’s hope the engraving on his headstone can truly mean Rest In Peace.
