Marie’s husband, John Toland, who was 35, was murdered by the UDA on the 22nd of November 1976, in the bar he managed in the village of Eglinton in Co. Derry. John and Marie had 7 children. Gunmen entered the Happy Landings Bar and shot John as he served behind the bar. The murder was sectarian. The UDA claimed it was in retaliation for the murder of a soldier by the IRA. The day after John’s murder the IRA murdered a protestant businessman in Derry.
