Josephine Glen (16), known as Jo, from Coolock, was a happy, kind, and sociable girl who loved children. Like a second mother to her siblings, she left school at 14 to work and support her family financially.
Sheena – "Our sister, Josephine Glen, was 16 years old, and she died as a result of inhaling toxic smoke from the fire at the Stardust nightclub in Artane in February 1981. Jo was a happy, kind, loving, and sociable person with lots of friends, some of whom she was out with that night. Jo loved children. She loved spending time with our neighbour's little girl, and she babysat for other families in the neighbourhood.
Alison: I was only a year younger than Jo, and we grew up very closely together. More like twins than sisters, although very different in personality. I remember Jo as a beautiful girl, who was kind, loving, and thoughtful, and fun to be with. Always ready and willing to help, with whatever needed doing. As children, we always had the same Christmas presents. And we're out at the crack of dawn together playing with our new roller skates. Or whatever we had that year.
William: I remember Jo. She was our mum's right hand. Always preparing dinner if she was home first and being a second mum to us all; always smiling and happy. Jo went to work at 14 years old, as soon as she left school and contributed the majority of her wages to the household to help our mum as she was a single mother of four children.
Alison: When we got a bit older, we went dancing together to the local teen disco and were best friends as well as sisters. Jo always looked out for me in different ways, paying for me to go to different places before I was working myself. Jo was quiet and gentle. She hated any sort of confrontation, so I always stood up for her and looked out for her.
I wasn't there on the night of the Stardust. And I still live with the guilt of not being there for her that night.
Sheena: I was ten years old at the time, so I didn't have long with my sister in my life. But my memories of her are all good. I remember her asking me if she looked okay on the night she went out to the Stardust.
And that was the last time I saw her alive. She looked beautiful.
When my family woke up on the morning of the 14th of February 1981, Jo wasn't home. Our neighbour called to ask if all of us were home, because there'd been a fire at the Stardust. And that whole day was spent going from hospital to hospital, looking for Jo.
William: Joe had been admitted to a hospital under a different name, and it was late that evening. When a family friend who worked in Jervis Street told me there was a girl matching Joe's description.
I went to identify Joe and when I saw her, with very few burns on her body, Joe just had a burn on her leg, about the size of my hand. We were delighted. We thought that, that was it, she was going to be okay, she'd be coming home. However, Jo was on a life support machine, for five days. We sat with Jo every day. We were in the hospital every day. We were talking to her. Praying. We were praying that she'd come back.
Sheena: We sat with Jo every day, talking to her and praying that she'd come back to us. My aunt remembers lying in the bed beside my mom each night while my mom cried and prayed and pleaded with God not to take her from us.
Sadly, this wasn't to be, and the life support machine was turned off on the 19th of February 1981, when they told our mother there was nothing else they could do for Jo. We believe this was due to the amount of toxic smoke she had inhaled, which shut down all of her vital organs after starving them of oxygen.
Sheena: All of our lives changed that day. Our mother understandably fell apart and struggled to go on with her life without all of her children. Things at home were never the same again. All of the laughter and happiness in our lives was replaced with tears and sadness. It makes us extremely sad that Jo never got to meet any of her eight nephews or her nieces, or to have any children of her own. Jo was only 16 and had so much more to live for.
William: A memorial in Beaumont Hospital for the victims was subsequently erected, and despite our many attempts to inform them, of the correct spelling of our surname, it was engraved incorrectly on the remembrance plaque, adding further to our pain and suffering.
Sheena: Sadly, our mother passed away seven years ago. She had problems with her heart for quite some time after Jo died, and we believe it was because her heart was broken after losing Jo. Our mother died without ever knowing what really happened to her beloved daughter, as have many of the other relatives of the victims of the Stardust Fire. Not a day goes by that we don't think about Jo and wonder what life would have been like if she hadn't been taken from our family over 40 years ago.
We still miss her every day, and we'll continue to miss her every day for the rest of our lives. Jo's life was cruelly cut short, as a direct result of the Stardust fire. And 40 years on, we still have no answers to how or why the fire broke out that night. For 40 years, the families of the 48 victims have been fobbed off with no explanations or answers. Instead, we have been made to suffer for all the time, never knowing the truth about what happened that night. The 48 children never came home. Jo was robbed of her life on the 14th of February 1981. Why has nobody ever had to answer for this? We hope and pray that this inquest will give us the long overdue answers that should have been priority for the Irish government 40 years ago, so our sister and our mother can finally rest in peace.
