The NYPD cop who gave children a break from the Troubles

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Irishman Denis Mulcahy emigrated from County Cork to the United States in 1962 and ended up becoming an expert with the NYPD bomb squad. Watching the Troubles back home in Northern Ireland, Denis and his friends hatched a plan to give children caught up in the violence, six weeks respite in the United States over the summer. Over four decades, the programme known as Project Children, brought together 23,000 Catholic and Protestant kids from either side of the divide, helping to inoculate them from the sectarianism tearing their homeland apart. Among the first group of children brought over to the US in 1975 were nine-year-old Kevin Brady and eleven-year-old John Cheevers. For them, that first visit to upstate New York would not only shape them as individuals but alter the course of their lives. Denis Mulcahy has received numerous awards for his work in bomb disposal and with Project Children, and has been nominated twice for a Nobel Peace Prize. Archive clips from: News Center 4, WNBC & the documentary Project Children: Defusing the Troubles by Alleycat TV. Presenter: Mobeen Azhar Producer: June Christie Get in touch: [email protected] or WhatsApp +44 330 678 2707 (Photo: Denis Mulcahy with kids involved in Project Children on the tarmac outside an aeroplane. Credit: Project Children)