Marcella McDermott (16), from Raheny, was known for her happy, singing, and dancing nature. She adored music, fashion, and family, and her gentle spirit and infectious smile touched everyone she met.
Introduction
My name is Selina McDermott; I'm the youngest child of 8 in the McDermott Family. Our sister Marcella was only 16 years of age when she died that night.
Background
Marcella came into this world on the 5th of March 1965, she was the 6th child to be born in our family of 8.
The words to explain Marcella, as my mother would say when talking about her, are happy, singing, and dancing.
In the first early years of her short life, my mother said she was quiet; you would hardly have known she was in the house. She wasn’t a baby who cried or a little girl who wanted much.
Marcella had the most gentle and kind nature, especially around children, she loved minding her nephews and spoiling them whenever she could.
The summer before the 14th of February 1981, she stood and became godmother for her sister Bred son Paul, she was so proud.
Marcella was a tall girl with the most beautiful jet-black hair, beautiful blue eyes, and an infectious smile. She loved her music, clothes, and the latest fashion. Any spare money she had she would meet up with her friends in town and head into the Dandelion Market.
I was very close with Marcella, as she would say I was her little skin and blister. She would bring me everywhere. We would go into town on the 28 bus and head into the Dandelion market. She would always buy a record, a pin badge for her Harrington jacket or a t-shirt, or sometimes she would buy me something small like a little treat or a badge, oh how I treasure those memories.
She didn’t hate school, but she didn’t love it either. She never complained about it, or anything for that matter.
She got her first job in La Coq clothing company in Jervis St. She then got a job in Dunnes Stores in Talbot St in town, and this is where her confidence thrived as Marcella was also quite a shy girl. This job gave her some form of confidence because she had her own few bob that she earned and she was able to buy her own few treats, especially in the bleak 80’s.
Marcella could brighten up any situation, she was always happy. She never came home from work without a little something for our mother, who she idolised, and the
last thing she actually bought her was a lovely cream cake, it’s the little things that you remember and never leave you.
She idolised my mother and couldn’t do enough for her, and it was the same for her father. Even the times when one of the others would be giving out about him, when my Dad would be saying "Turn the music down, "or "Make us a cup of tea," and so on, but Marcella wouldn’t have a bad word said about him, and she’d always make him his cup of tea, which was always like a cup of tar.
Like the rest of the family music was a big part of Marcella’s life, that’s why she never stopped dancing, especially to her favourite band The Specials. Her last t-shirt and record were from The Specials. Little did she know, her last time to see them, was actually at the Stardust, two weeks before she died.
On that evening, the 13th February 1981, Marcella told me she was going to the Stardust but not to tell Ma. She said "I’m going to say I’m going babysitting." She asked me to hide her clothes in the allio, and that’s what I did.
Marcella was with her friends that night, Noleen Dillon, Esther Rayner, Donna Mahon, Donna who also died that night, and a couple of other friends. She was also dancing with Willie and Geoge and a few neighbours from Edenmore in the Stardust on the dancefloor. They were all having a great time.
When the fire broke out, I was staying in my sister June’s house, who lives two doors up from the family home. An unmerciful bang and pounding on the front door; it was my mam and my dad. My mother screamed that "There was a fire in the Stardust, Willie and George are there, and we know Marcella is babysitting". I said, "no she’s not, she’s at the Stardust." My Dad picked me up and screamed "What do the f**k do you mean," then he dropped me, and everyone ran out.
Our beautiful Marcella was only officially identified on the 18th of February because they had to wait for dental records from Edenmore and Raheny, and only for that she would have been amongst the 5 unidentified.
Since then
Our lives became very different from then on. I lost my best friend. I remember sitting on the stairs, the crowds of people in the house, waiting to hear if they were found. They were found but they weren’t coming home. I have known death, sorrow, pain, loss, from the age of 11. I didn’t speak for a very long time after the Stardust, I wasn’t able to. My mother needed so much help then; she was completely lost, and my father was going through his own guilt, grief, and depression. We had no support from the outside, only the family around us who were also grieving. I very quickly had to grow up.
When we talk about Marcella, none of us can remember her ever been in a bad mood or giving out. She was always happy. She had such a good outlook on life and was always so positive about things, she only ever saw the good in people. She had so many friends, from Edenmore, Coolock and lots form Finglas, that’s why my mother and father asked her friends to carry her coffin, all dressed up in their two-tone gear.
Marcella would be 58 if she was alive and here with us today. Because her outlook on life was so strong and positive we can only imagine who and where and what she would be doing today. We believe Marcella would probably have gone on to do beautiful and brilliant things, but there’s no doubt she most definitely would have married and had children.
Conclusion
When we talk about Marcella you can’t help but smile and when we play her favourite band, we know she’s having a little dance up there with us. Marcella was one of a kind and we will always keep her memory alive.
McDermott Family’s impact statement regarding the loss of Marcella, George and William McDermott in the Stardust fire -
This is an impact of the Stardust fire on our family.
The Stardust. God, how we hate that name. The 14th of February 1981 changed our lives as a family forever. Nothing could have prepared us for what was happening or what was about to happen. We went to bed as a family of eight siblings and woke up as five.
When they told our mother that they had found Willie, she knew that George and Marcella wouldn't be coming home either. She knew in her heart that they were all gone.
It wasn't until we went to the funeral home and saw the three coffins laid out that we understood what was really happening.
Our mother was banging on the coffins, "Let me see my children!". Which wasn't an option given to my mother, or father, or our family. In the church that day, we thought we had not only lost Willie, George and Marcella, but also our mother. She kept saying, "why did he take three?" From leaving that church, our mother doesn't even remember burying her children.
The eruption of chaos was in our home. It was like not knowing where to start. The crying, the wailing, the fighting, and the blaming. But most of all, it was the emptiness in the house.
The next five years went by in a total blur. Like all of us, our mother received very little help from anyone. No counselling was ever mentioned. In fact, our mother was sent to a day centre for people with mental health issues and disabilities. They put a white coat on her and told her to sew little square parts of material together.
But she kept on saying, as strong as she is, I'm not sick or mad, I’m just grieving for my children. And thank God. She never went back there.
Her life after the Stardust has been one of the most unimaginable grief. How do you wake up from a nightmare like this? Only it wasn't a nightmare. She would still leave a key in the door, in the front door, for years, hoping one of them would walk through at any minute.
Although there was still five of us left, our mother really struggled. There were occasions where we would find her in the alley o, with her packet of sleeping tablets, ready to end it all. But luckily, someone always found her. This was when we thought she had truly given up. After this, I went up to her room with a picture of the Sacred Heart and I asked my mother, because I knew she wanted to go,
"Did you love them more than us?"
But that's when something changed in my mother. She started to get her strength back. Our father was a fireman and was off duty that night. His watch was D watch, and they were called out to Stardust that night. He kept saying he could have saved them if he was there. But deep down he knew. He knew they were never coming home. He would often say, being a fireman, "I know the death they had".
And this haunted him for his short years he had left. He did go back to work at Tara Street and was put onto the phones, but he just couldn't do it. It was too much. They gave him early retirement. The Fire Brigade were very good to him and to our family and especially to my mother and we can't thank them enough.
But life was becoming quite difficult at times as we were all dealing with our own grief in our own way. Our mother, blaming him for not being there to save them. And my father blaming my mother for not knowing that Marcella wasn't babysitting. Eventually life was unbearable for the two of them and they separated.
June and Bred were still young and married and had children of their own. They lost their pals that night as they were closer in age and went out together. They also still had to look after us, myself and my sister Louise. And then to come to terms with their own grief. And then you have my brother Jim, who still to this day won't talk about it and can't talk about it.
From the 14th of February 1981, Willie, George, Marcella, being taken from us that night, tore our family apart. People used to say that life will go on, but what use would counselling have been without any closure about what happened that night. What has made closure impossible for the loss of Willie, George and Marcella is the fact that the Irish state has failed to apply law to any proper investigation into their deaths and that's why we're here today.
The power and the will of healing is what got our family through this and thank God we were strong enough. Willie, Marcella and George. You will always be with us. Always. We love you and we miss you.
And in my mother's words, which are very short, but it says it all -
Willie, George and Marcella were her children. They were hers and my father’s children. They went out that night and they never came home. She misses them, loves them, and God bless them.
