On 31 July 1975 at Buskhill , outside Newry , popular Irish cabaret band The Miami Showband was returning home to Dublin after a gig in Banbridge when it was ambushed by gunmen from the UVF Mid-Ulster Brigade wearing British Army uniforms at a bogus military roadside checkpoint on the main A1 road . Three of the bandmembers , two Catholics and a Protestant , were shot dead , while two of the UVF men were killed when the bomb they had loaded onto the band 's minibus detonated prematurely . The following January , eleven Protestant workers were gunned down in Kingsmill , South Armagh after having been ordered off their bus by an armed republican gang , which called itself the South Armagh Republican Action Force . One man survived despite being shot 18 times , leaving ten fatalities . These killings were reportedly in retaliation to a loyalist double shooting attack against the Reavey and O'Dowd families the previous night
Kingsmill , South Armagh
Kingsmill massacre
The Troubles