Miami Showband Killings

The Miami Showband killings (also called the Miami Showband Massacre) was an attack by the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) on 31 July 1975. It took place on the A1 road at Buskhill in County Down, Northern Ireland. Five people were killed, including three members of The Miami Showband, who were then one of Ireland's most popular cabaret bands. They had been travelling home to Dublin late at night after a performance in Banbridge, County Down.

The band's minibus was stopped at a bogus military checkpoint seven miles (11 km) north of Newry. Gunmen in British Army uniforms ordered them out of their van and to line-up by the roadside. Although at least four of the gunmen were soldiers from the British Army's Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR), all were members of the UVF, a loyalist paramilitary group. While two of the gunmen were hiding a time bomb on the minibus, it exploded prematurely and killed them. The remaining gunmen opened fire on the band members, killing three and wounding two. Two UDR soldiers and one former soldier were found guilty of murder and received life sentences; they were released in 1998.

Allegations of collusion between British Military Intelligence and the loyalist militants persist. According to former MI6 agent Captain Fred Holroyd, the killings were organised by British Army Captain Robert Nairac (a member of 14th Intelligence Company), in collaboration with the UVF's Mid-Ulster Brigade and its commander Robin Jackson. The Historical Enquiries Team, which investigated the killings, released their report to the victims' families in December 2011. The team's findings confirmed that Jackson was linked to the attack through his fingerprints; found on a home-made silencer used on one of the murder weapons.

In a report published in the Sunday Mirror in 1999, Colin Wills called the Miami Showband attack "one of the worst atrocities in the 30-year history of the Troubles". Irish Times diarist Frank McNally summed up the massacre as "an incident that encapsulated all the madness of the time".