Stephen Travers - Remastered - The Miami Massacre

Published: May 19, 2019, 1 p.m.

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Newsweek wrote: Opening in Northern Ireland in 1975, during the peak of The Troubles\\u2014when Irish nationalist and British loyalist paramilitaries vied for control of Northern Ireland\\u2019s future\\u2014The Miami Showband Massacre opens in the music halls, where young people could find respite from the escalating violence.Miami Showband were the most popular of the era\\u2019s many dancehall bands, drawing in sold-out crowds across a divided Ireland. They were called the Irish Beatles and many considered singer Fran O\\u2019Toole to be a once-in-a-generation talent. But their promising future was cut short in July 1975, when Miami Showband was stopped by paramilitary forces while driving home to Dublin after a gig in Banbridge, Northern Ireland. A time bomb went off in Miami Showband\\u2019s minibus, killing two of the men manning the checkpoint. The other men at the checkpoint, wearing British Army uniforms, opened fire, killing three members of the band and injuring two.Eventually, three current or former members of the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR)\\u2014a part of the British army tasked with securing Northern Ireland\\u2014were tried for the murders. All of the killers were also members of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), a pro-British paramilitary terrorist group responsible for car bombings and hundreds of deaths. While the British Army portrayed the UDR as neutral peacekeepers, not siding with either the UVF or Irish nationalist Irish Republican Army (IRA), the Miami Showband massacre provided a dramatic example of just how much official British military bodies had been infiltrated by partisan paramilitaries. But the conspiracy ran even deeper than that, this latest episode of ReMastered reveals.The Miami Showband Massacre follows surviving band members, including bassist Stephen Travers and trumpet player Brian McCoy, as they seek justice from some of the highest powers in the United Kingdom. The surviving members of Miami Showband couldn\\u2019t help but notice the many, many inconsistencies from that night, beginning with a man with a British accent, suggesting there were more than local Irish recruits manning the roadblock.\\u201cWhen you\\u2019re stopped at a roadblock in northern ireland, it is not normal to hear a British accent,\\u201d band leader Des Lee points out in The Miami Showband Massacre.\\u201cI\\u2019m determined to find out who murdered Miami Showband, even if it leads up to the very top of the British government,\\u201d Travers says in the Netflix documentary. He will later recall hearing his band\\u2019s lead singer begging for his life on that dark roadside.While the massacre itself is shocking enough, The Miami Showband Massacre uncovers a far deeper conspiracy, beginning with one of the UVF\\u2019s deadliest killers, Robin Jackson, known as \\u201cThe Jackal.\\u201d Responsible for between 50-135 murders, connected to assassinations and car bombings, The Miami Showband Massacre makes a convincing argument that Jackson was, simultaneously, a British intelligence asset, possibly working for their CIA equivalent, MI6.

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