Harris Boyle

Harris Boyle (1953 – 31 July 1975) was an Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) soldier and a high-ranking member of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), a Northern Irish loyalist paramilitary organisation. Boyle was implicated in the 1974 Dublin and Monaghan bombings, and took part in the attack at Buskhill, County Down when an armed UVF gang wearing British Army uniforms ambushed The Miami Showband at a bogus military checkpoint. The popular Irish cabaret band was driving home to Dublin after a performance in Banbridge. He was one of the two gunmen killed when the bomb they were loading onto the band's minibus exploded prematurely. He is sometimes referred to as Horace Boyle. and attended Edenderry Primary School. On an unknown date, Boyle joined both the Portadown company of the UDR (as a part-time member) and the Portadown unit of the UVF Mid-Ulster Brigade. He held the rank of major in the latter organisation, which at the time was commanded by Billy Hanna. Despite a vetting process, joint membership of the UDR and loyalist paramilitary organisations was common. Paramilitaries joined to obtain weapons, training and intelligence.

Vetting procedures were carried out jointly by the military Intelligence Corps and the Royal Ulster Constabulary's Special Branch and if no intelligence was found to suggest unsuitability individuals were passed for recruitment and would remain as soldiers until the commanding officer was provided with intelligence enabling him to remove soldiers with paramilitary links or sympathies. The brigade formed part of what later became known as the Glenanne gang. This was a violent loyalist group which operated out of a farm owned by RUC reservist James Mitchell, and comprised rogue elements of Northern Ireland's security forces as well as the UVF and to a lesser extent, the Ulster Defence Association (UDA). This loose alliance carried out sectarian attacks and killings of Catholics, often, although not always, those seen as upwardly mobile, during the 1970s.

Boyle was charged with the possession of weapons and ammunition in suspicious circumstances on 9 September 1972 when he was 19 years old. He was implicated in the Dublin and Monaghan bombings of 17 May 1974. RUC Special Patrol Group officer John Weir named Billy Hanna, Robin Jackson and Davy Payne (UDA) as having planned and led one of the UVF teams that drove three bomb cars into Dublin's city centre during evening rush hour, killing 26 people. His allegations were published in 2003 in the Barron Report which was the findings of the official investigation into the bombings by Irish Supreme Court Justice Barron.

Hidden Hand reported that Boyle (along with Jackson and Hanna) was run as an agent by Captain Robert Nairac, the Military Intelligence Liaison officer attached to 14th Intelligence Company. At this point, Boyle and Wesley Somerville or after they reached the Republic of Ireland, killing all five band members on board. As the device tilted on its side, clumsy soldering on the clock which was used as a timer came apart and the bomb detonated prematurely. The bus was blown in half. The two loyalists, both at the centre of the explosion, took the full force of the blast and were killed instantly with their bodies hurled in opposite directions. Boyle's body landed in the road, fifty yards away from the front half of the destroyed vehicle. It was ripped in two and badly burned. Both men were decapitated and dismembered; one limbless torso was completely charred. Survivor Stephen Travers later saw a photograph of one of the dead men and described it: "He didn't have any head, just a black torso, no head, legs or arms."

The remaining UVF gunmen opened fire on the Miami Showband members who had been blown down into the field below the level of the road. Three of the band members were killed: trumpeter Brian McCoy, guitarist Tony Geraghty, and lead singer Fran O'Toole. Saxophone player Des McAlea and bassist Stephen Travers were both wounded, the latter having been shot with dum-dum bullets. Several days before the Showband attack, Mid-Ulster UVF leader Billy Hanna was shot dead, allegedly by Robin Jackson, who assumed command of the brigade. According to authors and journalists Martin Dillon, Paul Larkin and Joe Tiernan, Boyle had accompanied Jackson when the latter shot Hanna outside his home in Lurgan. Weir maintained that Jackson was an RUC Special Branch agent. Two serving UDR soldiers and one former UDR soldier: Lance-Corporal Thomas Crozier, Sergeant James McDowell, and John James Somerville (brother of Wesley) were given life sentences for the killings. At the time the Miami Showband attack occurred, the UVF was not an illegal organisation, the ban against them having been lifted in April 1974, by Merlyn Rees, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.

It would appear that the UVF patrol surprised members of a terrorist organization transferring weapons the Miami Showband minibus and that an explosive device of some description was being carried by the Showband for an unlawful purpose. It is obvious, therefore, that the UVF patrol was justified in taking the action it did and that the killing of the three Showband members should be regarded as justifiable homicide. The Officers and Agents of the Ulster Central Intelligence Agency commend the UVF on their actions and tender their deepest sympathy to the relatives of the two Officers who died while attempting to remove the bomb from the minibus.

Two weeks after the Miami Showband attack, a popular Portadown disc jockey Norman "Mooch" Kerr (aged 28) was shot dead by an IRA gunman as he was packing up his equipment after a show he had put on at the Camrick Bar in Armagh. Although not a member of any loyalist paramilitary organisation, he had been a friend of Boyle and the two were often seen together. Boyle had occasionally helped Kerr run his mobile disco. The IRA claimed it killed Kerr because he was an associate of Robert Nairac.

There is a mural and memorial plaque dedicated to Boyle in Portadown's Killycomain housing estate, where he had grown up. About 100 people, 16 loyalist bands and a UVF guard of honour were present at the mural's unveiling on 30 July 2005, following a parade through the estate. The plaque describes Boyle as having been "killed in action", which he was not.