Legacy of Miami Showband ‘is more than music, it is bringing people together'
Two of the loyalist terrorists from the Ulster Volunteer Force were also killed in the incident, when a bomb they placed on the bus exploded prematurely.
Survivors Des Lee and Stephen Travers were among those who gathered at the roadside where the atrocity happened on Thursday to remember their bandmates.
It was the first of a series of events, including in Newry and Dublin, being held on Thursday to mark the 50th anniversary.
Mr Travers said 50 years of tears have dried up and they want to tell the whole world of the legacy of the Miami Showband.
'It's far more than a band at this stage because bands come and go, and music comes and goes, and styles change, and if you were to ask anybody under 50 years of age to name all of the members of the Rolling Stones, I'm sure they'd have a problem,' he said.
'These things come and go, but the legacy of the Miami Showband is one that I am enormously proud of, and it is simply this: when people came to see us, whether they were Catholic, Protestant, Unionist, Nationalist, they left sectarianism outside the door of the dance hall and they saw each other as human beings, and they danced with each other, and sometimes they even fell in love.'
Father Brian D'Arcy opened the commemoration at the site on the Buskhill Road, hailing the survivors as 'proving that music and goodness survives'.
'That's what we're celebrating today, the survival of good, music and peace, and joy and bravery,' he said, adding a prayer for peaceful rest to all who died at the spot.
All those gathered said the Lord's Prayer together, before the hymn Abide With Me was played.
First Minister Michelle O'Neill did not attend the event, but in a message said she could not be there but described a 'deeply traumatic event for everyone, and remains a painful reminder of our troubled past'.
'I commend you all for your commitment to remembering your friends by celebrating their lives and the joy of music they brought to so many in their tragically short lives, I truly hope that while never forgetting the pain of the past we continue to move forward as a society towards a peaceful, inclusive and better future for all of our people,' she said.
In a post on the social media platform X, Secretary of State Hilary Benn wrote: 'Today, our thoughts are with the families of the victims, and the survivors, of the abhorrent Miami Showband Massacre 50 years ago.
'Let us remain determined to help build a better and more peaceful shared future for all the people of Northern Ireland.'
William Frank Godfrey lays a tribute to the three murdered members of the Miami Showband at the memorial on the Buskhill Road close to Newry, Co Down (Rebecca Black/PA)
William Frank Godfrey, a DJ who used to present the Miami Showband on stage, was among those gathered for the roadside commemoration.
'I used to play before them, and I'll never forget Fran O'Toole, his main song was 'clap your hands, stamp your feet', and he had the fans eating out of his hands,' he said.
'We're still grieving and we still miss the band, they were very, very popular, not only in Ireland but in many other countries as well.
'I lift my hat to them today in memory of the three lads and the survivors. We miss the music and thank them for the music. We will always have great memories of happy times.'
Earlier, Mr Lee said he remembers 'every single thing in the finest detail' from the atrocity in 1975.
'It was the most horrendous scene I have ever seen in my life, when I got up off the grass and I had to make a run up that embankment to get help.
'When I got onto the main road, it was the worst sight anyone could ever imagine,' he told the BBC Radio Ulster.
'They were my brothers, you know, three of my brothers.'
While there has been criticism of a loyalist band parade planned to take place in Portadown on Saturday to remember one of the attackers, Mr Lee said he has 'no problem with that whatsoever'.
'They are entitled to commemorate their dead as much as we are entitled to commemorate ours,' he said.
He was, however, critical of the UK Government over its handling of the past, saying he feels they are doing a 'dreadful job'.
'They're trying to push all the families under the carpet and hope that it all goes away, and as long as I'm alive, I will fight for Fran, Brian and Tony,' he said.
Mr Lee said he expected the anniversary will be an 'extremely difficult day'.
'My whole philosophy in life now is forgive and forget and move on,' he said.
'I don't hold any grudge. What happened to my friends was appalling but I don't want to live for the rest of my life living in the past.
'But there's one thing we must never forget: Fran O'Toole, Brian McCoy and Tony Geraghty.'
He described their only weapons as having been instruments to entertain audiences 'during that awful time' in Northern Ireland in the 1970s.
'Fran had a microphone, Brian had a trumpet, and Tony had a guitar. That was the weapons that they had during that awful time in Northern Ireland, bringing two hours of peace and joy and happiness and dance and love and kindness and everything that went with it,' he said.
'That was our job to entertain those people for two hours, no matter what religion, no matter what creed.
'We were a band that were mixed, and we had never any problems regarding religion or anything. Our job was to entertain people, and that's what we did.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Guardian
3 hours ago
- The Guardian
Flaco Jiménez obituary
Flaco Jiménez, who has died aged 86, was a master accordion player who transformed the Tex-Mex music scene in the US. A virtuoso performer of tejano conjunto – a fusion of Mexican styles and the polkas of German immigrants to the south-western states – he updated the form by adding rock, blues or country influences. He said he wanted the accordion to 'yell and scream, and make it happy'. He worked as a soloist, with his own bands including the supergroup the Texas Tornados, which he co-founded, and with a remarkable range of musicians, including Ry Cooder, Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones. His many accolades included five Grammys, one of which was a lifetime achievement award in 2015. Jiménez's 70-year career started out in the dance halls and bars of his hometown, San Antonio, Texas, and along the Mexican border. He became a regional celebrity but grew bored with 'playing the same way for years'. Doug Sahm, a fellow Texan and the adventurous former leader of the country-rock band Sir Douglas Quintet, changed all that when he began working with Jiménez and invited him to play on his 1973 album Doug Sahm and Band – joining a celebrity cast that included Dylan and the New Orleans pianist Dr John. The album begins, suitably enough, with the upbeat (Is Anybody Goin' to) San Antone and includes a rousing Jiménez accordion solo on Poison Love. Then came Cooder, who invited Jiménez to play on his gloriously inventive 1976 album Chicken Skin Music. 'He tracked me down,' Jiménez said. 'I had never heard of him but he opened my eyes.' He toured the UK with Cooder and his band, and recorded a memorable concert with them for the BBC's Old Grey Whistle Test in 1977 that included accordion-backed reworkings of the folk song Goodnight Irene and the Jim Reeves country classic He'll Have to Go. The musical partnership would continue for decades. Jiménez's many recordings with Cooder included Get Rhythm (1987) and Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down (2011). Helped by the collaborations, Jiménez's solo career flourished. His first solo album was released in 1972 on the San Antonio DLB label; more than 25 would follow, including several for Arhoolie Records, run by Chris Strachwitz, famed for promoting American roots styles. Jiménez's 1985 recording Ay te Dejo en San Antonio, made with the singer Toby Torres, won Arhoolie a Grammy. During the 1980s he also toured with the bluegrass star Peter Rowan, with whom he recorded the witty and defiant ballad The Free Mexican Airforce (from the album of the same title), and played on the country stars Dwight Yoakam and Buck Owens's single Streets of Bakersfield, taken from Yoakam's 1988 album Buenas Noches From a Lonely Room. Rowan later appeared, along with Cooder, on Jiménez's album Flaco's Amigos (1989). In the same year he was reunited with Sahm, along with Augie Meyers and Freddy Fender, in the Texas Tornados, who won a Grammy for the song Soy de San Luis, written by Jiménez's father, which appeared on their debut album. A popular touring band, they went on to release half a dozen more albums, including two live sets. In 1990 he was reunited with Dylan, whom he joined at the Montreux jazz festival to perform Across the Borderline, co-written by Cooder. He returned to the song (this time with vocals from John Hiatt) on his 1992 album Partners, which also included contributions from Stephen Stills, Cooder and Linda Ronstadt. The album was selected for the US Library of Congress Recording Registry for recordings deemed 'of special historical significance'. His least expected collaboration came in 1994, when he was on tour in San Francisco and was invited to record with the Rolling Stones. He went to the studio, played along with the song Sweethearts Together, then said he was ready to record – only to be told by Mick Jagger that they had already recorded what he was doing. The result can be heard on the Voodoo Lounge album. In 1995 he played on the Mavericks hit All You Ever Do Is Bring Me Down, and in 1998 won another Grammy with another supergroup, Los Super Seven, in which he was joined once again by Sahm and Fender, along with Joe Ely and members of Los Lobos. In 2000 he teamed up with Sahm yet again, this time on his own album Sleepytown, which also included Yoakam and Owens. Born Leonardo Jiménez in San Antonio, he was known since childhood as Flaco (Spanish for skinny). He was the son of Santiago Jiménez, a successful accordion player, and his wife, Luisa (known as Mena), who ran a home filled with music. His grandfather, Patricio, had played conjunto, as did his father, who recorded several regional hits. Flaco started out playing bajo sexto guitar, a 12-stringed Mexican instrument, then switched to the accordion when he was seven. At 15 he started a band, Los Caporales, and began playing on local radio stations at the start of a career that would transform Texan music. He slowed down in his later years, but continued to mix recording and performing. In 2020 he was reunited with the Mavericks on their first all-Spanish album, En Español, and in May 2024 he gave his last performance at the annual Tejanto Conjunto festival in San Antonio. He is survived by his wife, Adela, whom he married in 1969 and with whom he once ran a food truck, Taco Jiménez, by their children, Raquel, Rebecca, Cynthia, Gilbert, David, Leonardo, Arturo and Norma, and his brother, Santiago Jr, another celebrated accordion player. Flaco (Leonardo) Jiménez, musician, born 11 March 1939; died 31 July 2025
The Guardian
9 hours ago
- The Guardian
Flaco Jiménez obituary
Flaco Jiménez, who has died aged 86, was a master accordion player who transformed the Tex-Mex music scene in the US. A virtuoso performer of tejano conjunto – a fusion of Mexican styles and the polkas of German immigrants to the south-western states – he updated the form by adding rock, blues or country influences. He said he wanted the accordion to 'yell and scream, and make it happy'. He worked as a soloist, with his own bands including the supergroup the Texas Tornados, which he co-founded, and with a remarkable range of musicians, including Ry Cooder, Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones. His many accolades included five Grammys, one of which was a lifetime achievement award in 2015. Jiménez's 70-year career started out in the dance halls and bars of his hometown, San Antonio, Texas, and along the Mexican border. He became a regional celebrity but grew bored with 'playing the same way for years'. Doug Sahm, a fellow Texan and the adventurous former leader of the country-rock band Sir Douglas Quintet, changed all that when he began working with Jiménez and invited him to play on his 1973 album Doug Sahm and Band – joining a celebrity cast that included Dylan and the New Orleans pianist Dr John. The album begins, suitably enough, with the upbeat (Is Anybody Goin' to) San Antone and includes a rousing Jiménez accordion solo on Poison Love. Then came Cooder, who invited Jiménez to play on his gloriously inventive 1976 album Chicken Skin Music. 'He tracked me down,' Jiménez said. 'I had never heard of him but he opened my eyes.' He toured the UK with Cooder and his band, and recorded a memorable concert with them for the BBC's Old Grey Whistle Test in 1977 that included accordion-backed reworkings of the folk song Goodnight Irene and the Jim Reeves country classic He'll Have to Go. The musical partnership would continue for decades. Jiménez's many recordings with Cooder included Get Rhythm (1987) and Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down (2011). Helped by the collaborations, Jiménez's solo career flourished. His first solo album was released in 1972 on the San Antonio DLB label; more than 25 would follow, including several for Arhoolie Records, run by Chris Strachwitz, famed for promoting American roots styles. Jiménez's 1985 recording Ay te Dejo en San Antonio, made with the singer Toby Torres, won Arhoolie a Grammy. During the 1980s he also toured with the bluegrass star Peter Rowan, with whom he recorded the witty and defiant ballad The Free Mexican Airforce (from the album of the same title), and played on the country stars Dwight Yoakam and Buck Owens's single Streets of Bakersfield, taken from Yoakam's 1988 album Buenas Noches From a Lonely Room. Rowan later appeared, along with Cooder, on Jiménez's album Flaco's Amigos (1989). In the same year he was reunited with Sahm, along with Augie Meyers and Freddy Fender, in the Texas Tornados, who won a Grammy for the song Soy de San Luis, written by Jiménez's father, which appeared on their debut album. A popular touring band, they went on to release half a dozen more albums, including two live sets. In 1990 he was reunited with Dylan, whom he joined at the Montreux jazz festival to perform Across the Borderline, co-written by Cooder. He returned to the song (this time with vocals from John Hiatt) on his 1992 album Partners, which also included contributions from Stephen Stills, Cooder and Linda Ronstadt. The album was selected for the US Library of Congress Recording Registry for recordings deemed 'of special historical significance'. His least expected collaboration came in 1994, when he was on tour in San Francisco and was invited to record with the Rolling Stones. He went to the studio, played along with the song Sweethearts Together, then said he was ready to record – only to be told by Mick Jagger that they had already recorded what he was doing. The result can be heard on the Voodoo Lounge album. In 1995 he played on the Mavericks hit All You Ever Do Is Bring Me Down, and in 1998 won another Grammy with another supergroup, Los Super Seven, in which he was joined once again by Sahm and Fender, along with Joe Ely and members of Los Lobos. In 2000 he teamed up with Sahm yet again, this time on his own album Sleepytown, which also included Yoakam and Owens. Born Leonardo Jiménez in San Antonio, he was known since childhood as Flaco (Spanish for skinny). He was the son of Santiago Jiménez, a successful accordion player, and his wife, Luisa (known as Mena), who ran a home filled with music. His grandfather, Patricio, had played conjunto, as did his father, who recorded several regional hits. Flaco started out playing bajo sexto guitar, a 12-stringed Mexican instrument, then switched to the accordion when he was seven. At 15 he started a band, Los Caporales, and began playing on local radio stations at the start of a career that would transform Texan music. He slowed down in his later years, but continued to mix recording and performing. In 2020 he was reunited with the Mavericks on their first all-Spanish album, En Español, and in May 2024 he gave his last performance at the annual Tejanto Conjunto festival in San Antonio. He is survived by his wife, Adela, whom he married in 1969 and with whom he once ran a food truck, Taco Jiménez, by their children, Raquel, Rebecca, Cynthia, Gilbert, David, Leonardo, Arturo and Norma, and his brother, Santiago Jr, another celebrated accordion player. Flaco (Leonardo) Jiménez, musician, born 11 March 1939; died 31 July 2025
Belfast Telegraph
2 days ago
- Belfast Telegraph
Loyalist killer who ‘murdered Catholics for being Catholics' marries a Catholic
EXCLUSIVE | Ex-UVF man Jimmy 'Shades' Smyth ties the knot at Antrim hotel UVF killer Jimmy 'Shades' Smyth was all smiles as he tied the knot with his Catholic bride yesterday. The loyalist, who has been linked to numerous sectarian murders, got hitched to his wife, who we are not naming, at the Dunsilly Hotel in Antrim.
