It has been over a year since the tragic Berkeley balcony collapse, in which six Irish students lost their lives and seven more were severely injured. Yesterday, there was a public hearing in Sacremento, California where survivor Aoife Beary made a public statement about the death of her friends.
It was Beary’s 21st birthday that brought together the group of Irish students in a Downtown Berkeley apartment. During the celebrations, the balcony of the fourth-storey apartment gave way, collapsing to the street below. Dual US/Irish citizen Ashley Donohoe (22) and Irish students Olivia Burke, Eoghan Culligan, Niccolai Schuster, Lorcan Miller and Eimear Walsh (all 21) were all killed. Seven more students were severely injured; Hannah Waters, Clodagh Cogley, Niall Murray, Sean Fahey, Jack Halpin, Conor Flynn and Aoife Beary herself, all aged between 20 and 22.
Shoddy construction and landlord negligence was immediately suspected to be the cause of the balcony collapse, and an investigation was launched. However, this Spring, Alameda Country District Attorney Nancy E. O’Malley revealed that no criminal charges would be filed.
On March 29 2016, of this year, the DA’s investigation concluded that the primary reason the balcony collapsed was “water [that] had been trapped (or “encapsulated”) in the balcony deck during construction, leading to eventual and extensive dry rot damage.” There was insufficient evidence that “a defendant had acted with gross or reckless conduct akin to a disregard for human life,” the office said.
This result corresponds with a separate investigation by the city of Berkeley, which identified dry rot as the cause of the balcony collapse.
At the Sacremento hearing yesterday, the California State Assembly’s Appropriations Committee heard evidence on a bill looking at building construction, contractors, discipline, reporting, and building standards.
Supporting stricter building regulation and disclosure laws, Aoife Beary and her mother Angela both made emotive statements, highlighting the impact the accident had on their lives.
“I miss my friends so much,” Aoife Beary said tearfully. “I’ve known them since we started school together at 4 years of age. We had grown up together. And now my birthday will always be their anniversary.”
Aoife described the injuries she suffered that night, which included a traumatic brain injury, open heart surgery, broken arms, hands, pelvis and jaw, as well as lacerations to her liver, kidneys and spleen, a collapsed lung and broken ribs.
Aoife’s mother Angela Beary addressed the hearing on behalf of all the families who had lost loved ones or seen them injured.
“I know I speak now for all of the thirteen families,” she said, “when I say that our lives have been irrevocably changed as a result of the balcony collapse, and life for us will never be the same again.”
Jackie Donohoe, whose daughter Ashley died in the tragedy, also spoke at the hearing. She said the young people on the balcony that night had been failed by a system that helped companies to hide their negligence.
By the end of the emotional hearing, Californian construction industry representatives withdrew their opposition for a new law which will require them to report previous convictions for shoddy work.

***

As an Irish person living in San Francisco, just a 20 minute BART ride from Berkeley, Aoife Beary’s statement wasn’t the first time this week that I thought of that tragic accident last summer.
Working at OutsideLands last weekend, a music festival in Golden Gate Park that reminds me of Electric Picnic, I got talking to a lot of Irish students. As we chatted, there always came that point in the conversation where I asked them where they were staying. When the answer was Berkeley, there was, without fail, a pause in the conversation, a moment of shared silence and understanding flickering between us. I don’t ask them have they checked out the building’s regulations or tell them to be careful – I know they’ve heard that from friends and parents, a million times over. I don’t ask them if they’re in the same neighbourhood as the accident; I know that every time they see students hanging out on a balcony, the geographical distance from the site doesn’t matter. That tragic accident is always so close. We can never get away from it.
In her statement, Aoife Beary said that her birthday would now always be the anniversary of the death of her lifelong friends. I can’t imagine how difficult that must be. I do know that as someone who never knew any of the victims, I am always grateful for the moments where I’m forced to remember them; Ashley, Olivia, Eoghan, Niccolai, Lorcan and Eimear. Those young adults who were brave and full of adventure, travelling 8000 kilometres from home to visit a new country and culture, to test out their independence, gain some life experience, and create mischief-fuelled memories with their best friends.
I know what it means to leave home and travel to California in search of adventure and experience, and I know what it means to be Irish in this city. I hope it brings Aoife and the families of the victims some small sliver of comfort to know that being Irish in this city means never being forgotten.
Apart from one pub in Berkeley that holds poetry events, I don’t visit Irish bars in America. For the past year, I’ve lived in the Mission; a district largely populated by Mexican and Latino individuals that are fighting against the gentrification that’s rapidly upping the rent and forcing families out of the neighbourhood. As a white person living here, I feel a responsibility to understand and support the Mission; its unique culture, its history. I make a point of shopping in local stores, frequenting the Mission cafes, spending far too much money in the three gorgeous bookstores near me. I know the names of every bouncer of every dive bar on 24th street, and the shopkeeper in the Serv-U-Mart knows me as the girl who always buys the Malteasers and Crunchies – rare delicacies here, they remind me of home.
There’s an Irish pub called The Napper Tandy on 24th street too. I don’t go in – and not just because for an Irish bar, they have a bizarre amount of dishes featuring jalapenos and Tater Tots. It’s because I didn’t want to be an Irish person who came to San Francisco and merely sought out the familiar.
But that’s easy for me to say, now. When I moved over here in 2014, I knew Irish people who already lived here. They’ve since moved back home, but for my first year in San Francisco, they were my safety net. They explored the city with me, we rolled our eyes together when people didn’t understand our accents and slang, they vented and commiserated with me when the culture shock hit unexpectedly hard. Having Irish people around me, supporting me, helping me build community, was the only thing that got me through my first year of living in a strange new city. Now that they’re gone, I don’t have many close Irish friends in the city.
I thought I was okay with that.
But my American mates have noticed that every time we walk by an Irish bar, I slow down. I never even realised, but I’m trying to hear the sounds of Irish people; our lyrical cadence, our shameless cursing, our voices filled rage and mischief and dropped ‘t’s. I’m trying to hear the groups of Irish friends who came here together for adventure, who are celebrating their holiday spot or new home, and each other.
I don’t know the people in those pubs, but I’m still drawn to them, in the most instinctive of ways; something ancient and tribal pulling at my gut, telling me to slow down, my people are in there. I think after yesterday’s hearing, I may finally start going inside.
I didn’t know the students in Berkeley who lost their lives. But I still feel them in The Bay, as do all of the Irish here. We know how important having Irish friends has been to all of our journeys here, and how unimaginably difficult it must have been to come here and lose so many of them. We remain aware of the ways in which Irish people here remain connected to each other, and how the Berkeley tragedy united us further; in grief, and sympathy, and a deeper appreciation for each other.
I often visit and walk around Berkeley, and Irish students continue to stay there during the summer. Life goes on. But every now and then, we have those silences in our conversations. We slow down our walking. We pause.
And we remember.