Surviving members of the Miami Showband travelled north and south of the Border on Thursday, commemorating their former bandmates who paid the “ultimate price” during the Troubles.
Thursday marked 50 years since lead singer Fran O’Toole, guitarist Tony Geraghty and trumpeter Brian McCoy were murdered by loyalist paramilitaries on July 31, 1975, after the band was stopped at a bogus checkpoint outside Newry, Co Down.
[ Miami Showband massacre 50 years on: ‘The trauma lasts for ever’ – Stephen Travers ]
The fake army patrol attempted to hide a bomb on the band’s tour bus before the device exploded prematurely, killing two of the would-be bombers. Their accomplices then opened fire on the band.
On Thursday, beginning at the site of the attack on Buskhill Road, Ray Miller, Des Lee, Stephen Travers and their former road manager Brian Maguire then travelled to Newry, Dundalk and finally Dublin on Thursday.
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Speaking at the site of the Miami Showband memorial on Parnell Square, Dublin, Mr Maguire (76) said: “It never leaves you.
“Today has probably been the hardest day I’ve had in 50 years.”
He said that on the night he had left the venue before the band, which was a rare occurrence.
“If I had been 20 seconds behind the boys, I’d have been stopped and shot as well. It never goes out of your memory. It’s always a part of you,” he said.
About 80 people congregated at the memorial on Parnell Square and heard how the band members sought to bring enjoyment to those north and south of the Border, but ended up paying the “ultimate price”.
Mr Travers said that for any victims of the Troubles “50 years is only like 50 seconds, because it’s ever-present”.
His abiding memory of that day, he said, was the “cursing and anger” among those who had carried out the attack “because it had all gone wrong for them”.
He recalled rolling over on his back after the attack and staring at the moon after the men had left.
“Eventually, I started to crawl around through the bodies of my friends, and body parts of the unfortunate men who blew themselves up,” he said.
Noting he had spent Thursday “talking about the slaughter of three musicians”, Mr Travers said: “Every time I turn on the television at night time I see the slaughter of 60,000 people in Gaza. The genocide must stop. How can we possibly lament three musicians and our lost lives and not be just as vocal in lamenting theirs.”
Mr Travers said the futility of violence and the failure of violence were “something politicians should get their head around”.
He said he was proud to have been a member of the band, saying: “I ask myself why are we commemorating the Miami Showband. And the reason I came up with is because it’s now much more than a band.
“Every single man and woman that ever stood on a stage north of the Border during those terrible times was a hero, every one of them, because they brought people together.
“And that’s the legacy of the Miami Showband: wherever we played, people flocked together, whether they were Catholic, Protestant, unionist, nationalist, they came together.
“Sectarianism was left outside the door and people came into the ballrooms and saw each other as human beings and danced with each other. Sometimes, they fell in love.”
