How US families opened their homes to give more than 23,000 Northern Ireland children a summer escape from the Troubles

A new book has been launched that documents the legacy of a scheme that gave more than 23,000 children from Northern Ireland the opportunity to escape the Troubles and spend the summer in the United States.

Project Children: The Legacy, written by Derry-born author Jane Buckley, explores the experiences of the children, parents, volunteers and American host families whose lives were brought together through the programme.

Founded in 1975 by brothers Denis and Pat Mulcahy, Project Children enabled Catholic and Protestant young people from Northern Ireland to spend their summer holidays with families across America.

For many participants, the trips offered a first experience of life away from the threat of violence that shaped everyday life during the Troubles.

Over the course of four decades, more than 23,000 children took part, supported by around 16,000 American host families.

Ms Buckley’s new book seeks to preserve the personal stories behind the programme, drawing on four years of interviews, research and archive work.

Running over 600 pages, it contains more than 150 photographs and testimonies from those who experienced Project Children first-hand.

Ms Buckley grew up in Derry during the Troubles and first heard about the scheme as a child herself.

Like many young people at the time, she hoped to be selected for one of the American trips, although she was never granted the opportunity.

Yet the idea of children being given the chance to travel across the Atlantic and escape their current way of life stayed with her.

After spending more than 30 years in London and writing the bestselling four-book Stones Corner series, Ms Buckley returned to telling stories of the place she spent her childhood years.

She began work on ‘Project Children: The Legacy’ amid concerns that the memories of those involved could be lost as time passed.

“I did not want this to become a list of dates, flights and famous names,” Ms Buckley said.

“The real history belongs to the children who boarded those planes, the parents who found the courage to let them go and the American families who opened their homes to youngsters they had never met.

“Those are the voices I wanted to preserve.”

Long before power-sharing became part of Northern Ireland’s political landscape, Catholic and Protestant children were spending time together in America, sharing family meals, swimming pools, baseball games and neighbourhoods.

Some participants met other children from Northern Ireland while abroad, recognising familiar accents before discovering whether they came from Catholic or Protestant communities.

By that point, friendships had already begun to form.

The experience offered the children the chance to challenge the divisions they had grown up with and return home with first-hand experience of people from different backgrounds living alongside one another.

Project Children also helped strengthen personal connections between Northern Ireland and the United States at a time when American engagement would become increasingly important to the peace process.

Founder Denis Mulcahy travelled with then-US president Bill Clinton during historic visits to Ireland, while the programme brought the experiences of children living through the Troubles into American homes and communities.

The impact of the scheme continued long after the summer trips ended, with participants forming lifelong friendships, returning to visit their host families and, in some cases, building their own families across the Atlantic.

One participant reportedly announced at the age of 11 that he would return to America to marry his host family’s daughter. Years later, he did.

Other former participants went on to become teachers, community leaders and public servants, with some determined to ensure their own children grew up with fewer divisions.

Although the original summer programme concluded in 2015, its legacy continues through initiatives including internships, the Mulcahy Scholarship and a permanent archive at the Monaghan Peace Campus.

The archive aims to preserve the history of a project that became part of the wider story of reconciliation on the island of Ireland.

Eamon Ó Cléirigh, substantive editor at Clearview Editing, described the project as an “extraordinary, compassionate endeavour” told by those involved on a personal level.

‘Project Children: The Legacy’ is published by Oakleaf Press this month.