On the 50th anniversary of the killings of three members of the Miami Showband, John Scally remembers the darkest of nights and writes how memories of the band glow forever in the hearts of so many Irish people
One of my favourite songs when I was a little boy was Fran O’Toole’s Love Is. My childish mind could not grasp back then how this man who sang ‘smile on sunshine’ so beautifully would lose his life in such a violent manner. Fifty years on I still love that song but I still can’t make sense of such evil.
Unfortunately, the Troubles brought death and destruction to far too many people on both ‘sides’ of the conflict. For many the wounds, physical and emotional, have never healed.
Over three thousand families tumbled into the mist and darkness of night because their children fell at the hands of those unburdened by the constraints of morality and conscience. The doors of these inconsolable families, breathing desolation and grief, can sometimes seem locked to the bountiful grace of heaven.
On July 31, 1975, in County Down, five people were killed, including three members of the popular Miami Showband, in an attack by the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), a loyalist paramilitary group. At the time the Miami Showband were a hugely successful live act right across the 32 counties.
There were six members in total in the Miami: Tony Geraghty, Fran O’Toole, Ray Millar, Des McAlea (Des Lee), Brian McCoy and Stephen Travers. Five members of the band were travelling back home after a concert at the Castle Ballroom in Banbridge, County Down. Ray Millar, the band’s drummer, was not with them, as he had chosen to go to his home town of Antrim to spend the night with his parents. The band’s road manager, Brian Maguire, had already gone ahead a short time earlier in the equipment van.
At about 2.30am, when the band was seven miles north of Newry on the main A1 road, their Volkswagen minibus (driven by trumpeter Brian McCoy with Stephen Travers in the front seat beside him) reached the townland of Buskhill.
Near the junction with Buskhill Road they were flagged down by armed men dressed in British Army uniforms waving a red torch in a circular motion.
This was so commonplace during the Troubles that the band members assumed it was a legitimate checkpoint. The unsuspecting musicians (still wearing their stage clothes) got out and were courteously told to line up facing the ditch at the rear of the minibus with their hands on their heads.
More uniformed men emerged from out of the darkness, their guns pointed at the minibus.
After McCoy told them they were the Miami Showband, one gunman, (who had a notebook) asked the band members for their names and addresses, while the others conversed with them about the concert that night.
Continue reading in this week’s Ireland’s Own
