Charlie Bird meets Stardust Nightclub fire survivor Jimmy Fitzpatrick.

ON VALENTINE’S Day, 1981, 48 people lost their lives in the fire at the Stardust nightclub in Artane, Dublin

A fire started up in a corner, and a few of the security staff went to try and extinguish it, and it just took hold really fast. The next thing, the lights went out, smoke came down, and everyone rushed to get out then.

Jimmy Fitzpatrick was 17 years of age and training as an apprentice butcher in Superquinn in the Northside shopping centre when he went to the Stardust.

He had gone there with a big group of friends, most of them fellow workers from the supermarket. But, as a big group of lads they were always prime targets for refusal by the bouncers.

However, on this fateful night, almost all of his young friends whose average age was just over 17, were admitted without any problems and by the end of that night many of them would be dead or badly injured.