Teresa Mc Donnell (16), from Coolock, was a fun-loving and compassionate teenager. She adored animals, once bringing home a stray donkey. She lived to socialise with her friends and dreamed of a career in beauty or hairdressing.
Introduction
On the 14th February 1981, little did we know that our family and that of 47 others would have an earthquake going through our homes and our lives. As a survivor of the Stardust fire, I found it difficult to put into words what I want to say. My sister, Teresa McDonnell, died in the Stardust. I have struggled with the great loss of my sister Teresa all my life.
Background
As children we played together with our toys - playing school, hospital, among many things.
As we grew up, we talked about our plans for the future. We would chat when I came in from work. She always had time to listen to me.
Teresa was an animal lover. Most 10-year-olds would bring home a stray cat or dog, one day she brought home a stray donkey and pleaded with our parents to keep him.
Stardust
On the night of the Stardust fire, I had gone with my friends and Teresa had gone with hers. Teresa had come over a number of times to chat with me. She was sitting near the main door and I was at the back. We were having a good time.
The first thing I knew about the fire was when Teresa, forgetting about her own safety, ran over to me and shouted, "Lorraine, get out, there's a fire!" My sister’s last words have haunted me ever since.
I got out an exit and Teresa had turned to go back to the main door. When I got out, I went around the front of the Stardust and saw Teresa’s friends. The first thing they said was, "Where’s Teresa?". There was pandemonium and chaos. We couldn’t find her in the crowds, and I eventually went home to tell my parents about the fire.
When our parents couldn’t find Teresa in any of the hospitals our dad came home and went upstairs to his bedroom and broke down crying. I went up to him and said, "Da, we’ll find her". He apologised for crying. I think he was a man from a generation who wanted to stay strong for his family. I remember realising that the only place for our Dad to go looking next was the morgue.
Our Dad was dead within two years from the shock of the Stardust, and identifying his daughter killed him.
Since then
After the death of Teresa, I spent many sleepless nights in our shared bedroom, where we had all those late-night chats about our future. I was realising that, for Teresa, there would be no future, and, for me, my life had changed forever. I would never see life the same again. I had no sister to turn to talk to about new romances, new heartbreaks and plans for a future, a future that had now changed forever.
The lonely nights were endless. The sound of her last words, telling me to get out, have haunted my sleep for years.
My parents eventually moved me into the smaller room and my two brothers moved into the room I’d shared with Teresa. Mam had to get a new bed and bedroom furniture for me. It was just too difficult to look at Teresa’s empty bed and her clothes. Simple things like shopping had to change. Mam could not buy foods like cauliflower and brussel sprouts, as only Teresa and my Mam would eat them.
There was so much I missed Teresa at. She should have been a bridesmaid at my wedding and godmother to one of my children. At all family get-togethers, she is always missed. It is so sad that my children never got to see their beautiful aunt Teresa. They never got to know her, but I keep her memory alive, and she is always mentioned at parties, weddings, and especially at Christmas; that was the time she loved the most, because it brought out that inner child in Teresa, that inner child that loved to see everyone happy.
Conclusion
My children say they feel that they know Teresa, because I have never let her memory die. Her last words to me are engraved onto my mind "Lorraine. Get out, there's a fire." The last memory I have of my little sister is her putting me before her own safety. Her death has left a huge hole in my heart. To this day I still miss my sister, Teresa McDonnell.
PEN PORTRAIT
Teresa McDonnell by her brother Richard McDonnell & Family
Introduction
There is a focal point around which everything revolves - the centre that holds everything together. When that focal point is broken, everything falls apart and is scattered to the wind. For the McDonnell family that focal point was our sister Teresa.
Teresa held everything together with love, fun and happiness, and when she was killed, on Valentine’s night over forty years ago, our whole family was scattered to the wind.
Background
To the world she was a name which was read aloud on the news - one of 48 young people who were killed in a fire on the northside of Dublin, but we lost everything that night.
Teresa loved life and tried to live and enjoy every moment. It was that love for life and living that brought her to the Stardust that night. She looked forward to the music and meeting her family and friends who she always had time for. Teresa was a fun loving, friendly, beautiful, young girl who was killed at the age of 16 and a half years.
Teresa loved all animals, whether they were tame or feral, and they always seemed to warm to her. She was also brave. She was a young girl that always stood up for what she believed in, no matter what the consequences, even if it resulted in raised voices from our parents.
She attended Saint Mary’s Secondary school in Killester, which she hated with a passion. Although she was very bright, she had no time for academics. School was about the social aspect for her. Teresa loved hair, make up, and beauty and she spoke about getting a career as a beautician or hairdresser.
Teresa had a huge circle of friends who to this day talk about the fun loving, full-of-life, personality that was our sister.
Stardust Fire
The days after the fire seemed an eternity of waiting. I remember the Guarda coming to the house and asking, "Do these things belong to your daughter?". My Ma was screaming through the house, in panic. The howling screams of my Ma ripped through my whole family, fracturing body and spirit, sending us into an absence of being that I don’t think we ever came out of.
When the news broke that Teresa’s body was found Father Crossens the local priest saying the rosary, just a pleading prayer that begged with all of our hearts, "Please, don’t let this be true.
Since then
Our sister was gone. Her name, thereafter, too painful to recall. Memories of her death and how she was killed scarred our family. Nothing was done to help us move on, and we had nobody to talk to about the aching pain and frustration in our hearts.
We had to force a false bravado to help our mother and try to stop her unending crying. We would say things like "Teresa’s in heaven now, Mam".
Within 12 months of the Stardust fire our father was wrecked with cancer - not from life habits but from seeing his daughter lying in a body bag and being identified by her eternity rings, a miraculous medal, and brown scapulars which she wore every day.
We as a family drifted away from each other, each person looking for comfort, but the sister that brough that comfort was dead. Our pain was unending and the centre that held us together was gone. Our mother’s pain was visible on her face, her heart-breaking, never-ending sobs filled our home. A soul had been ripped out of existence. Our sister’s death threw a sickness over our family that seemed to be terminal.
Teresa was dead in mind, memory and thought. To recall her was pain. To speak about her meant tears. For many years after we kept the pain and memories locked away and compressed into a ball of frustrating anger, simmering under the surface, with no vent for release.
We spent a great part of our lives not being able to say what was been troubling us – not being able to say what was on our minds or to express ourselves fully.
We had lost more than a sister. Our family had lost a soul mate the night of the Stardust. Teresa was our best friend. A confidante to us all. A person who always had time to talk, always had kind words and the wisdom of knowing how to use those words for all of us in the family.
Conclusion
Words cannot describe the sorrow our family has endured. The hearts of our mother and father were shattered that night, their souls stripped bare, and their bodies reduced to an unending ache they carried to their graves. We lost more than a sister that night, we lost the centre of our family that kept everyone close with her love, laughter and courage.
Our sister Teresa lost the opportunity to meet her nieces and nephews who would have loved their fun-loving aunty.
Our home that was once a place of laughter and music and sometimes arguing and shouting, that was always reconciled by a sister who loved peace and knew the ways to instil it. Our home became a place of sorrow. Objects and photos were filled with painful memories. An absence filled our home
and our hearts. We were all left alone in the darkness of bereavement, wandering through life in pain after a daughter and sister had been ripped away without ever getting a full answer as to what happened or why it happened.
The wait for all our unanswered questions has been over 42 years. I hope now that the family of the 48 victims of the Stardust fire get the justice and peace we have been looking for.
