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!970s Northern Ireland, Belfast, Claudy, James Simmons, La Mon Bombing, Miami Showband Massacre, Phoenix, The Troubles, vinyl
Any atrocity reported in isolation can be used to beat the other “side,” but together with stories from both communities, it is clear that no “side” has a monopoly on suffering or loss.
~Stephen Travers, July 30, 2018
On July 30, 1972, the year of Bloody Sunday and Bloody Friday, the final details were being planned for what would happen the next day in Claudy, a sleepy little village in County Derry. Three car bombs would be strategically placed in a town center bustling with Monday morning shoppers. Carefully choreographed, the plan would include telephone warnings and code words to alert authorities before the bombs detonated.
The warnings never came. In nearby Feeney, the public telephone box was out of order; in Dungiven, the telephones were out of order following an earlier bomb attack on the local telephone exchange; and, by the time shop clerks were asked to tell the police in Dungiven that three bombs were about to explode in Claudy, it was too late. The first bomb had already detonated at 10.15am, outside McElhinney’s shop and bar on the village main street, killing instantly Joseph McCloskey, Elizabeth McElhinney, and Kathryn Eakin.
The other two followed in rapid succession, injuring thirty people and killing nine – five Catholics and four Protestants. Three of those killed in the assault were children, memorialized by poet, James Simmons:
An explosion too loud for your eardrums to bear,
Young children squealing like pigs in the square
All faces chalk-white or streaked with bright red
And the glass, and the dust, and the terrible dead.
Kathryn, a little girl on a step-ladder cleaning her mother’s grocery shop window, was the youngest victim, just eight years old, a year younger than me. Innocent, hopeful, unguarded.
Gone.
In my mind’s eye, I see her tiny body on the ground, the devastation around her. And, all these years later, haunted and helpless, I still see on our tiny black and white TV screen, the platform boot among the wreckage on the side of the road at Buskill, County Down.
It wasn’t until I read a book about Northern Ireland that I realized I was probably a Child of The Troubles, even though I was always, by nothing other than luck, in the right place at the right time. It would be from a safe distance, that I would learn to recognize the dull thunder-clap of a bomb, the tremble of our kitchen window in its wake, and the stench of days-old smoke from rubble that used to be a hotel, a supermarket, a restaurant, a favorite pub.
Physically untouched and far away in America, I cannot escape a calendar marked with anniversaries of atrocities in the country that shaped me and scared me – Bloody Sunday, the bombings of Omagh and Enniskillen, La Mon, Kingsmill, The Wayside Halt, Loughinisland, Greysteel, Warrenpoint – and too many more. Rewinding my mental tapes, I also recall black and white news reports from the place across the water that some of us referred to as “the mainland” – of Aldershot, of cars packed tightly with explosives that blew up outside The Old Bailey and in Whitehall; The M62; bars in Guildford, then Birmingham; and, Warrington, Canary Wharf, and Brighton. And, I remember, following one of these atrocities, hearing a man on the radio remark that it “would give the Brits a taste of The Troubles.” He really said that.
Stephen Travers wouldn’t say that. He would say that “no community has a monopoly on suffering and loss.”
Were it not for the Netflix documentary, ReMastered – The Miami Showband Massacre – millions of people would not know about Stephen Travers and his support for all victims of the Troubles or of his unflagging quest for the truth about what was being planned for the last day of July, 44 years ago. They would not know that the final details of his execution were being planned for the next day at 2:30am. They would not know that the blame for this atrocity was to be placed squarely on the shoulders of his band members, Ireland’s most beloved showband, the “Irish Beatles” – The Miami. They would not know that the diabolical plan would go horribly wrong, that Stephen would survive and spend the next 44 years fighting every day for the truth about it, for justice for himself, his murdered friends, for victims and families on all sides, for Kathryn.
In the wee hours of July 31st 1975, Stephen and the other members of The Miami Showband, were traveling home from a gig at the Castle Ballroom in Banbridge. The sixth member, drummer, Ray Millar, had gone home to my hometown, Antrim, to stay with his family. On a narrow country road outside Newry, they were flagged down by a group of uniformed men at what appeared to be a routine UDR (Ulster Defense Regiment) army checkpoint. Like the rest of us at the time, I imagine they were only mildly inconvenienced by it. They probably expected it, until they were ordered to get out of their van and stand by the roadside with their hands on their heads. Facing a ditch with their backs to the vehicle, The Miami Showband would wait while the men in uniform checked inside the van.
I don’t know when it was that The Miami Showband realized this was not a routine army checkpoint, that they were instead the unwitting victims of a vicious ambush. As they waited, two of the UVF men – later revealed as members of the Ulster Defense Regiment – were hiding a bomb under the driver’s seat, while the others rummaged in the back of the band’s van. The plan had been to send the innocent musicians on their way, with a bomb timed to explode ten minutes later, killing all of them and consigning them to history as terrorists transporting explosives. But, the bomb exploded prematurely, blowing both men to bits, and in the chaos that followed, the remaining UVF members opened fire, killing three of the band members.
There were reports that the handsome young lead singer, Fran O’Toole, was shot 22 times in the face. Lying on his back on the ground, he was utterly vulnerable to men who showed no mercy as he begged for his life. Trumpet player, Brian McCoy, shot nine times, was the first to die at the scene. Lead guitarist, Tony Geraghty, was shot in the back – five times – and in the back of the head twice. Des McAlea and Stephen Travers survived the blast from the explosion that flung both of them into the night air. Des McAlea suffered minor injuries and somehow escaped into the night; Stephen was seriously wounded and survived only because he pretended to be dead. Face down in the grass and motionless, he would later recall that one of the gunmen kicked the body of his friend, Brian, just feet away, to ensure he was dead.
It was wash day, and I was at home and bored. My mother was ironing, and the quiet of our kitchen was interrupted only by occasional bursts of steam and the voice of the man on the radio. With an uncharacteristic solemnity, he was telling us about what had happened in the wee hours of the morning, that on their way home from a gig at the Castle Ballroom in Banbridge, The Miami Showband, had been attacked in a vicious, premeditated ambush, that members of the band were dead including heartthrob lead singer, Fran O’Toole.
Our David Cassidy was dead.
Sitting here at a computer in my Arizona kitchen, the shock and revulsion returns, the sorrow and fear as details of the massacre unfolded. My mother kept ironing one of my father’s shirts, all the while shaking her head and muttering to God. It was unimaginable – these young men, Catholics and Protestants, darlings of the show band scene, in their prime and adored by thousands of fans north and south of the border, slaughtered in the muck on a country road. Why?
Perhaps we had been in a kind of denial that musicians were somehow immune, perhaps because we saw in the Miami Showband what could be, its members and its audiences crossing all social, religious, and political boundaries. But what happened to The Miami Showband left no doubt that musicians were just as much of a target as anyone else. “No community has a monopoly on suffering and loss.”
When I asked him how we should remember his friends on the anniversary of the massacre, Stephen had a simple request, that musicians of the world take a moment to remember their fellow music makers in The Miami Showband, to maybe mention their names at gigs or play a piece in solidarity, to sing a song.
How long must we sing this song, I wonder?
I think Stephen would tell me we must sing it until the testimony of every victim has been heard, until the truth is told, until peace has a chance.
We who have felt and continue to feel the consequences of violence are determined to use our experiences to build bridges by publicly illustrating that no side has a monopoly on suffering and loss. We earnestly believe that acknowledging this unassailable truth is an important step towards effective healing and lasting reconciliation. If stories of empty chairs, empty beds, empty cradles, and empty hearts serve no purpose other than to stay the hand of violence and give peace a chance, such testimonies are surely a precious gift to humanity.
Stephen Travers, 2016
Note: Stephen Travers co-founder and Chairman of Truth and Reconciliation Platform (TaRP) will be speaking in Phoenix Arizona on October 11, 2019. Click here to purchase tickets.
