Is Whiddy ‘out of sight, out of mind’?

IN a landmark development in the Dáil on Tuesday, the families of the 49 victims of the 1981 Stardust Tragedy in Artane got the apology they had waited over 40 years to hear.

The formal State apology made to the families and victims came after the inquest reached a verdict last Thursday that the deaths were a result of ‘unlawful killing’.

It was a remarkable end to the four-decades-long campaign which had seen the families treated utterly disgracefully by successive governments and the Irish legal system. It was even concluded, at one point, that arson was the cause of the horrific Valentine’s Day fire.

That conclusion did untold damage to the spirit of those families, who were horrified at the slur cast on their friends and their community, when there was never any evidence to support the allegation.

The pain it caused those families probably helped to strengthen their determination to continue the campaign for justice.

Time and time again, they came up against resistance – whether in the courts, the floor of Leinster House, the media, or even through public discourse. Nobody believed their consistent calls for a new inquest would be granted.

And even after it was granted, against all the odds, the general belief was that they would not get the outcome they sought – and deserved. But they did.

In the days that followed they set their sights, calmly and with dignity, on their next hurdle: to get a comprehensive apology from the State.

On Tuesday of this week that came, too. Taoiseach Simon Harris made a very sincere and heartfelt speech in the Dáil, saying the State was giving them an ‘unreserved’ apology about the treatment they had been subjected to, since 1981.

The families now feel they have closure at last, and their beloved deceased children, siblings, cousins and friends, can finally be laid to rest.

But there is another group of families, in this case 50 of them, who have been watching the Stardust case very closely, here in West Cork.

Those are the families and friends of the 49 killed in the 1979 Whiddy disaster – and one diver who died during the salvage operation.

The Whiddy tragedy took place just two years before Stardust and many of the victims there also died in a fire – this time brought about by an explosion on the ill-fated tanker, the Betelgeuse.

While two inquests and a tribunal took place in the aftermath, lawyer Michael Kingston, whose father died in the tragedy, has always believed the deaths should have been deemed ‘unlawful’.

His father, Tim, was adjudged to have died from ‘asphyxiation due to accidental drowning’. Michael does not accept that as the cause of his death.

Michael, a maritime lawyer, has spent his life researching the tragedy and attempting to have the inquests reopened. He also represents the families of the French victims.

He has high hopes now, given last week’s Stardust verdict.

TD Mick Barry raised it in the Dáil this week too.

There are many similarities between both cases – an unexpected tragedy leading to a devastating fire, 50 victims in one and 49 in the other, within two years of each other, unsatisfactory inquests and long drawn-out campaigns established by families who felt they weren’t being listened to by the State.

But there is one major difference between the two incidents and one which many believe may be a reason why there has, to date, been two very different outcomes.

The Stardust tragedy claimed the lives of 49 Irish victims – 48 young people, and one unborn child.

But the Whiddy tragedy claimed the lives of seven Irish citizens – the remainder were French, with the exception of one Briton and a Dutch diver.

Many of those involved in the campaign believe because the vast majority of the Whiddy families (42) are based in France, there was less pressure on the government to ‘do the right thing’ by them.

The families were not on the ground here and, as a result, were never a constant, physical presence before our legislators, in the way the Dublin-based Stardust families were.

A case of ‘out of sight, out of mind’, perhaps?

It is a cynical, sad, viewpoint, but it also cannot be completely disregarded.

Why else could it be taking the government so long to respond to the constant calls for a new inquest into Ireland’s most devastating peacetime marine tragedy?