DaveCinzano
WATCH OUT, GEORGE, HE'S GOT A SCREWDRIVER!
42 years ago today a terror cell - the ‘Glenanne Gang’ - comprising members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary, soldiers of the Ulster Defence Regiment, and paramilitaries of the Ulster Volunteer Force murdered three members of a popular Irish cabaret group, the Miami Showband.
A party of approximately ten from the gang, dressed as British soldiers, had flagged down the musicians as they travelled home after a gig at a fake checkpoint in the Buskhill area near Newry, with the intention of secreting a bomb (primed to detonate some time later) on board their minibus. This would then give the impression that the band's members were involved in armed Republican activity.
Instead the device exploded prematurely. The two soldiers trying to hide the device on the minibus, Harris Boyle and Wesley Somerville, were killed instantly. All the members of the band were disorientated and/or injured in the blast. The decision was then taken to eliminate them all then and there as witnesses to a heinous plot, and the gang opened fire with a wide array of UVF-held guns. Three band members - Fran O'Toole, Tony Geraghty and Brian McCoy - were killed. Two others - Stephen Travers and Des McAlea - were so gravely wounded that the gang thought them dead. The band's sixth member, Des Millar, had fortuitously made his own way home from the gig and so was not caught up in the charnel house at the checkpoint.
Subsequently the UVF released a statement falsely claiming that one of its ‘patrols’ come under heavy fire from the Miami Showband and others as they transferred a bomb from one vehicle to the minibus. This, like much else on the topic from the UVF, the Unionist establishment in Northern Ireland, and from the British state, was shown to be a brazen lie. In time, three members of the murder gang were convicted for their parts in the slayings at Buskhill. All have long since been released from gaol. None implicated any others involved.
Those involved in the Glenanne Gang included those who had been instrumental in the Dublin and Monaghan bombings, as well as in numerous shootings and other attacks. Indeed, just three days ago the families of more than one hundred people killed over the years throughout the thirty-two counties of the island of Ireland by the UVF in collusion with the UDR and the RUC won a High Court action in relation to the failure to properly investigate the activities of the Glenanne Gang:
Let us remember that there can be no peace, no reconciliation, without meaningful and candid truth-telling.
RIP Fran, Tony and Brian.
Miami Showband killings - Wikipedia
http://spinwatch.org/images/Countergangs1971-76.pdf
Glenanne gang - Wikipedia
Glenanne / Lethal Allies | The Pat Finucane Centre
http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/issues/collusion/docs/cassel061106.pdf
JFF - Justice for the Forgotten
Side note: Stephen Travers identified one of the attackers as having an English accent, and wearing a different coloured beret to the UDR one worn by the other ‘soldiers’ at the checkpoint. British Army whistleblower Fred Holroyd has claimed British Army officer Robert Nairac was closely involved in the planning and execution of the operation. This is disputed by others. Regardless, the full story of Buskhill or of Glenanne has yet to be heard, and the full picture of collusion between state and Loyalist paramilitaries has yet to be painted.
A party of approximately ten from the gang, dressed as British soldiers, had flagged down the musicians as they travelled home after a gig at a fake checkpoint in the Buskhill area near Newry, with the intention of secreting a bomb (primed to detonate some time later) on board their minibus. This would then give the impression that the band's members were involved in armed Republican activity.
Instead the device exploded prematurely. The two soldiers trying to hide the device on the minibus, Harris Boyle and Wesley Somerville, were killed instantly. All the members of the band were disorientated and/or injured in the blast. The decision was then taken to eliminate them all then and there as witnesses to a heinous plot, and the gang opened fire with a wide array of UVF-held guns. Three band members - Fran O'Toole, Tony Geraghty and Brian McCoy - were killed. Two others - Stephen Travers and Des McAlea - were so gravely wounded that the gang thought them dead. The band's sixth member, Des Millar, had fortuitously made his own way home from the gig and so was not caught up in the charnel house at the checkpoint.
Subsequently the UVF released a statement falsely claiming that one of its ‘patrols’ come under heavy fire from the Miami Showband and others as they transferred a bomb from one vehicle to the minibus. This, like much else on the topic from the UVF, the Unionist establishment in Northern Ireland, and from the British state, was shown to be a brazen lie. In time, three members of the murder gang were convicted for their parts in the slayings at Buskhill. All have long since been released from gaol. None implicated any others involved.
Those involved in the Glenanne Gang included those who had been instrumental in the Dublin and Monaghan bombings, as well as in numerous shootings and other attacks. Indeed, just three days ago the families of more than one hundred people killed over the years throughout the thirty-two counties of the island of Ireland by the UVF in collusion with the UDR and the RUC won a High Court action in relation to the failure to properly investigate the activities of the Glenanne Gang:
Let us remember that there can be no peace, no reconciliation, without meaningful and candid truth-telling.
RIP Fran, Tony and Brian.
Miami Showband killings - Wikipedia
http://spinwatch.org/images/Countergangs1971-76.pdf
Glenanne gang - Wikipedia
Glenanne / Lethal Allies | The Pat Finucane Centre
http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/issues/collusion/docs/cassel061106.pdf
JFF - Justice for the Forgotten
Side note: Stephen Travers identified one of the attackers as having an English accent, and wearing a different coloured beret to the UDR one worn by the other ‘soldiers’ at the checkpoint. British Army whistleblower Fred Holroyd has claimed British Army officer Robert Nairac was closely involved in the planning and execution of the operation. This is disputed by others. Regardless, the full story of Buskhill or of Glenanne has yet to be heard, and the full picture of collusion between state and Loyalist paramilitaries has yet to be painted.
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