'We became sisters': Minnesotans took in kids from Northern Ireland in the '70s — and changed lives

Although they share no blood, they call themselves family.

Dionne Drugan and Roisin McCrickard were grinning 8- and 9-year-olds in their first picture together. In the most recent photo, taken 41 years later, the joy they find in being together is still apparent.

"It started when I shared her bedroom," said Roisin Marshall (formerly McCrickard). "We became sisters though and through."

The girls met in 1978 when Marshall arrived from Northern Ireland to spend seven weeks with the Drugans in Holmen, Wis.

At first, Roisin was so shy that she didn't correct her hosts for rhyming her name with "poison," rather than the Gaelic pronunciation, "Ro-sheen." But she quickly found her place among the four Drugan children, bonding with Dionne as they swam in the town pool, fished at the family cabin and played Little League at what Marshall called "the baseball pitch."

"Other than the way she talked, she was a girl like me," said Drugan. "We didn't think of anything beyond where to build the next sand castle."

Marshall was one of about 6,000 boys and girls who came to the Upper Midwest thanks to the St. Paul-based Children's Program of Northern Ireland (CPNI). The volunteer-led effort, which continued for 40 years, offered an equal number of Protestant and Catholic children a respite from the bombs and sniper fire that threatened daily existence in their religiously segregated country.

The influence of the program is still being felt today.

"We've heard from children who are adults now who say our program was a huge factor in understanding that they wanted to live a different way," said Sheila Hartigan Dols, a longtime CPNI board member who opened her North Minneapolis home to multiple children.

Those carefree weeks were "magical" for Marshall, giving her a break from family responsibilities as well as the tensions in Northern Ireland.

"Being away and seeing a new perspective put a wee notch inside me there. I was different when I left," said Marshall. "With my meager upbringing, expectations for me were quite low. After being in America I remember thinking, 'I want to do something with my life.' I became a person with goals and determination."

SAFE HAVEN

In 1972, when 495 people died in "The Troubles," a despairing Belfast mother wrote letters to U.S. newspapers, begging for safe haven "from the bombs and bullets" for her 9-year-old son.

The Fargo Forum published her plea, which led to an invitation to the lad to spend part of his summer with a Minnesota farm family. The next summer, the Hibbing Rotary set up a program to bring 120 children from Northern Ireland to the Midwest.

Eventually, the program moved to St. Paul and continued matching participants with Minnesota and Wisconsin families. Similar nonsectarian programs in Chicago and New York soon followed.

In Minnesota, sponsor families paid for transatlantic tickets and other costs associated with hosting the mostly working-class children.

"Some affluent families could write a check, but others worked at it to afford it," said Karol Baumeister, a CPNI board member and St. Paul travel agent who booked the trips and escorted hundreds of children through the years. "They did fundraising, fish fries during Lent. There were families where they agreed no one would get Christmas presents so they could put that money to the cost of sponsorship."

"My host mother and father were extremely industrious, busy people but they had time to look out for me," said Marshall, who spent two summers with the Drugans. "They made sacrifices to have another child along and I loved them."

After Marshall returned home, she and Drugan became pen pals. Eventually, Drugan became an exchange student and went to Australia.

"Seeing what Roisin had done made me more open to getting out of my corner of the world," she said.

Marshall stayed involved with CPNI, chaperoning children coming to Minnesota.

"The experience broke down fears and vicious myths held by children from both sides and let them see their humanity," said Fred Nairn, a theology professor at the University of St. Thomas. Nairn, a Northern Ireland native, interviewed Marshall and other adults who participated in the program as children for a book, "The Sky Is Higher."

"They carried something of that back to their home places," he said. "This had considerable and in some cases a profound effect on the rest of their lives."

INTEGRATED EDUCATION

Before Roger Busby came to Minnesota as an 11-year-old in 1991, he'd never met a Catholic.

"There was no trust. Awful random attacks happened," he said of life in Northern Ireland at the time. "From an early age everyone was taught to size people up. Barriers were encouraged," said Busby.

On the flight here, he sat with Catholic kids in the program, then saw them during the summer at group picnics and ice cream socials.

Busby, who remembers cheering the Twins at the Metrodome and "being mad" for Twizzlers, spent two summers in Minnesota, became a chaperone, and the Protestant boy even earned an internship to study at the University of St. Thomas, a Catholic institution.

"I have such a special bond with Minnesota. I'm forever grateful to the families who opened our minds to how a community can live in harmony," he said.

Now a 41-year-old Belfast banker, Busby is proud of his diverse workplace and has enthusiastically chosen to send his two daughters to what's known as an integrated school.

Unimaginable a generation ago when the people of Northern Ireland lived, worshiped, worked and were educated strictly among their own, integrated schools have revolutionized classrooms in the country.

Marshall is now CEO of the Northern Ireland Council for Integrated Education, which has established 65 schools that mix students and staff regardless of religious backgrounds.

"I believe integrated education is a fundamental byproduct of the programs that gave us the experience of being together, here and in America," Marshall said. "Amid deeply ingrained hatred, we've taught empathy and created structures that enable children and their families to live a broader experience."

The Good Friday Agreement signed in 1998 brought an end to much of the internal strife and brutal fighting that had long terrorized Northern Ireland. The urgent need to give children a rest from the unrest eased and the CPNI program quietly came to a halt 10 years ago.

Marshall thinks the summers in America had "more impact than we can know" for the thousands of children who have become Northern Ireland's adults.

"Many wise people worked behind the scenes to show us a different way," she said. "When you change the lives of children, you can change society."