2006 Television Drama
In 2006, Ireland's national broadcaster, Radio Telefís Éireann (RTÉ), caused controversy by producing a docu-drama about the disaster entitled Stardust, to mark the 25th anniversary of the incident. The series was based on the book They Never Came Home: The Stardust Story by Neil Fetherstonhaugh and Tony McCullagh. Many families of victims objected to this and were upset by the painful memories it brought up. Reasons for objection were the focus on some key families, which some felt portrayed the disaster as only really impacting a select few, the depiction of the actual fire and a silent roll call of all the victims who perished. A preview of this drama was shown to relatives in early February 2006 and after some minor changes it was broadcast on 12 and 13 February 2006. Those changes include: The silent roll call being changes to one were all names were read out by survivor Jimmy Fitzpatrick and a voice-over being used to explain throughout the narrative that this impacted a lot more families and individuals than those portrayed predominantly in the film.
Read more about this topic: Stardust Fire
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