Miami's legacy 'is more than music'

Band survivors mark 50 years since ambush

- BY REBECCA BLACK

THE legacy of the Miami Showband is about more than just music, it is bringing people together, a survivor of the loyalist ambush which targeted its members has said.

Singer Fran O'Toole, guitarist Tony Geraghty and trumpeter Brian McCoy were shot dead on a roadside close to Newry on July 3, 1975.

They had been pulled over at a bogus security forces checkpoint.

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 to remember their bandmates yesterday.

It was the first of a series of events, including in Newry and Dublin, being held 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.

He said: "It's far more than a band at this stage because bands come and go, and music comes and goes, and styles change.