Local tragedies are just as much the part of Ireland’s history and as worthy of commemoration as great national events, said Taoiseach Michéal Martin as he praised the people of Dromcollogher, Co Limerick, for remembering 48 people killed in a cinema fire there 100 years ago.

Martin told the Dromcollogher cinema fire commemoration that the tragedy – which claimed the lives of 48 people on the night of September 5th, 1926, when a candle fell on a reel of nitrate film turning the makeshift cinema into a blazing inferno – would never be forgotten.

“I commend you, the people of Dromcollogher, for your strength of character in maintaining that memory of the suffering of your forebearers. It is the same strength of character I am certain that sustained the villagers to go on in the aftermath of such an overwhelming disaster.”

Praising historian Prof Liam Irwin for his research into the tragedy, Martin told the hundreds of people attending the commemoration in the grounds of St Bartholomew’s Church in Dromcollogher that it was critical that such tragedies are not forgotten but remembered and commemorated.

“Generally, when we talk of commemoration in Ireland, we focus on the national events, the Famine, the Rising, the War of Independence. But history is not just the story of national tragedies, or of the people involved in the great events that led to the establishment of the state.

“It is also the story of individuals, families, and communities going about their daily lives, engaging and interacting with one another … that is why tragedies such as Dromcollogher are so important for the state to recognise and remember. They are just as poignant, just as sorrowful and impactful,” Martin said

“Ireland’s story weaves its way intricately from the national story to the local. It is 1,000 towns and villages, rural and urban communities with their own stories like Dromcollogher where a century ago the dead were buried in a mass grave and the town not given time to mourn their loss.

“The state-led commemorations today show that Ireland today is a country that honours its localities and their dead … It shows Ireland is a country that recognises the importance of grief, mourning, and memory. It runs deep in our hearts and traditions to honour our dead.”

Minister for Culture, Communications and Sport and local Limerick County TD, Patrick O’Donovan pointed out that at the time of the tragedy, just months after the fledgling Free State held its first census, Dromcollogher was to lose 48 of its citizens, almost one in every 10 people living the town.

“The events of 1926 here in Drumculture are in many ways tragically similar to those 55 years later in the Stardust in Artane, where again 48 would die on a social night out and we are joined here today by some of the relatives of the Stardust victims.”

“Really more than anyone here today, you fully understand the scale of the devastation and trauma that the families of this town and surrounding areas endured 100 years ago. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts for making what we know is a very difficult journey for you here to Limerick.”

Mayor of Limerick John Moran noted that 100 years ago, “there wasn’t a soul in Dromcollogher who didn’t lose someone close to them” and for decades afterwards, people called it ‘The Burning’ and left it there, seldom spoken of, even among themselves.”

But the Dromcollogher Centenary Commemorative Programme including the community choir and schoolchildren reading poems had given the local people a way to express their loss in a way that their grandparents and great grandparents could scarcely face, he said.

“That act of remembrance takes courage: to sing about it, to write about it, to speak of it aloud after a century of silence; and to mark not just the lives lost, but the contributions each made during their time on earth,” said Moran.

Former RTÉ presenter Brian Dobson read out the names of the 48 people including 15 children who perished, the Taoiseach and the Minister unveiled a memorial to the dead in the grounds of St Bartholomew’s Church, just yards from the mass grave where 46 of the 48 victims are buried.