Broadcaster Charlie Bird delivered a pen portrait of a
Stardust victim during another emotional day at the inquest into the tragedy yesterday.
The former RTE newsman, who used voice simulation technology due to having motor neurone disease, had reported on the fire on the night it happened in February 1981.
Charlie, who previously broke down at a memorial for the Stardust victims, delivered a pen portrait for 20-year-old Robert “Bobby” Hillick.
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The tribute was written after conversations with his brother Bill Hillick before he passed away two years ago.
Bill said he and his sibling were very close. He described him as always outgoing and hardworking. Bobby, originally from Belfast, had gone to Dublin to work on a building site.
He said in his pen portrait: “Bobby’s death really took its toll on me and I went to England for many years to try to block out that it had happened. I couldn’t cope with it and being at home was being constantly faced with his loss. Even now I still don’t think I will ever get over it.” In his tribute, Bill said Bobby’s death devastated the family. He added: “My mother doesn’t deserve to be forced to carry this heartbreak and this grief.”
The inquest into the fire, which killed 48 people in the early hours of February 14, 1981, also heard other harrowing testimony yesterday.
After two days searching the Dublin city morgue, the parents of Mary and Martina Keegan were handed plastic bags containing small pieces of jewellery which they were asked to identify. Their youngest brother Damien related how he would sit on his doorstep and wait for his sister to come home every day for months after she was killed.
He said: “I was only three-and-a-half and couldn’t understand why Mary never walked up the path again.”
Lorraine spoke about her sister Martina, who was 16 when she died. She described her as “absolutely stunningly beautiful”, a Marilyn Monroe look-a-like.
She told how the Keegan family lost everything that day, and life has never been the same for them.
Mum Christine passed away in July 2020 and Damien paid tribute to her by reading an extract of a statement she wrote in anticipation of the inquest.
It said: “The Stardust tore our family apart, it has to be the saddest thing for any parent to have to bury their child, it was the worst day of my life.”
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