Miami Showband Killings - Memorials

Memorials

A monument dedicated to the dead Miami Showband members was unveiled at a ceremony at Parnell Square North, Dublin, on 10 December 2007. Survivors Stephen Travers and Des McAlea were both present at the unveiling, as was the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, who made a tribute. The monument, made of limestone, bronze and granite, by County Donegal sculptor Redmond Herrity, is at the site of the old National Ballroom, where the band often played.

A mural and memorial plaque to Harris Boyle and Wesley Somerville is in the Killycomain Estate in Portadown, where Boyle had lived. The plaque describes them as having been "killed in action".

In a report on Nairac's alleged involvement in the massacre, published in the Sunday Mirror newspaper on 16 May 1999, Colin Wills called the ambush "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". In 2011, Journalist Kevin Myers denounced the attack with the following statement: "in its diabolical inventiveness against such a group of harmless and naïve young men, it is easily one of the most depraved ".

A stamp was issued in Ireland on 22 September 2010 commemorating the Miami Showband. The 55-cent stamp, designed with a 1967 publicity photograph of the band, included two of the slain members Fran O'Toole and Brian McCoy as part of the lineup when Dickie Rock was the frontman. It was one of a series of four stamps issued by An Post, celebrating the "golden age of the Irish showband era from the 1950s to the 1970s".