I really didn't know much of the story of the Miami Showband Massacre although I probably saw it on the news at the time when it would have been just one of dozens of items documenting the many atrocities carried out on both the Protestant and Catholic sides during the Irish Troubles of the 70s.
After a brief potted history of the band where their national popularity sees them described as the Irish Beatles, the story is related of the horrifying and fatal attack in July 1975 carried out on their tour bus on their way home after playing a gig. At two o'clock in the morning, they were stopped by what appeared to be a group of British Army soldiers at a checkpoint. In reality however, it turned out that the uniformed men were in fact disguised members of the paramilitary representatives of the Protestant Ulster Volunteer Force or UVF for short. The plan was to plant a timed bomb on their bus which would go off shortly afterwards on their journey, to kill everybody on board and presumably see the group posthumously scapegoated as arms smugglers for the IRA. However the bomb went off accidentally, killing two of the terrorists, at which point the rest of the gang turned their guns on the band members killing three of them although two others managed to escape in the confusion.
The programme then concentrates on the campaign ever since for justice initiated by the group's surviving bass-player Stephen Travers, along with his bandmate Des Lee. Their dogged persistence leads them to conclude that the ambush was led by a British army officer whose identity the British government has consistently covered up down the years. In addition, two other insiders with British Army and Intelligence connections aiding them were discredited and either committed to a mental hospital or even framed for murder and put in jail.
The hope obviously was that the Good Friday Peace Agreement of 1999 and the resultant amnesty for all the "political" prisoners on both sides of the religious divide might see the release of evidence to finally explain what happened on that fateful night. It did indeed seem that a British Army captain, murdered by the IRA 2 years later, was involved in the massacre and that a UVF leader at the time, suspected of many other killings, also never answered for this crime in which he was heavily implicated.
I was moved by the dedication of the surviving band members to get to the truth of what happened to their colleagues despite the pain that has stayed with them ever since the events of that night.
I can't deny that the programme was slanted to a greater or lesser degree to make a particular point and one can argue that there are many similarly unresolved cases of atrocities carried out by the IRA also deserving of a documentary programme like this.
None of which however can justify the slaughter of these three young men of an innocent popular mixed-religion pop group whose only purpose was to entertain their fans on both sides of the border.
Made in 2018 I'm not aware of any significant subsequent breakthrough since this documentary was made, in the campaign for the truth. I suspect this is just one of many cases where the truth remains concealed no doubt for reasons of "national security" and the desire not to jeopardise the subsequent power-sharing peace which has subsisted between Northern Ireland and Eire since then.
That may be all well and good in an abstract sense, but I'm pretty sure that if I had lived through something like this I too would be unstinting in my attempts to get to the truth. The two survivals here plus of course the families of the deceased surely deserve as much.
After a brief potted history of the band where their national popularity sees them described as the Irish Beatles, the story is related of the horrifying and fatal attack in July 1975 carried out on their tour bus on their way home after playing a gig. At two o'clock in the morning, they were stopped by what appeared to be a group of British Army soldiers at a checkpoint. In reality however, it turned out that the uniformed men were in fact disguised members of the paramilitary representatives of the Protestant Ulster Volunteer Force or UVF for short. The plan was to plant a timed bomb on their bus which would go off shortly afterwards on their journey, to kill everybody on board and presumably see the group posthumously scapegoated as arms smugglers for the IRA. However the bomb went off accidentally, killing two of the terrorists, at which point the rest of the gang turned their guns on the band members killing three of them although two others managed to escape in the confusion.
The programme then concentrates on the campaign ever since for justice initiated by the group's surviving bass-player Stephen Travers, along with his bandmate Des Lee. Their dogged persistence leads them to conclude that the ambush was led by a British army officer whose identity the British government has consistently covered up down the years. In addition, two other insiders with British Army and Intelligence connections aiding them were discredited and either committed to a mental hospital or even framed for murder and put in jail.
The hope obviously was that the Good Friday Peace Agreement of 1999 and the resultant amnesty for all the "political" prisoners on both sides of the religious divide might see the release of evidence to finally explain what happened on that fateful night. It did indeed seem that a British Army captain, murdered by the IRA 2 years later, was involved in the massacre and that a UVF leader at the time, suspected of many other killings, also never answered for this crime in which he was heavily implicated.
I was moved by the dedication of the surviving band members to get to the truth of what happened to their colleagues despite the pain that has stayed with them ever since the events of that night.
I can't deny that the programme was slanted to a greater or lesser degree to make a particular point and one can argue that there are many similarly unresolved cases of atrocities carried out by the IRA also deserving of a documentary programme like this.
None of which however can justify the slaughter of these three young men of an innocent popular mixed-religion pop group whose only purpose was to entertain their fans on both sides of the border.
Made in 2018 I'm not aware of any significant subsequent breakthrough since this documentary was made, in the campaign for the truth. I suspect this is just one of many cases where the truth remains concealed no doubt for reasons of "national security" and the desire not to jeopardise the subsequent power-sharing peace which has subsisted between Northern Ireland and Eire since then.
That may be all well and good in an abstract sense, but I'm pretty sure that if I had lived through something like this I too would be unstinting in my attempts to get to the truth. The two survivals here plus of course the families of the deceased surely deserve as much.