CHICAGO -- A group of 160 Protestant and Catholic children from Northern Ireland Saturday began their six-week taste of baseball, hotdogs and American pie far from their violence-torn homeland.
The trip is being organized by the Irish Children's Fund, which started the project last year as a way of promoting friendship between Catholics and Protestants from Belfast and Londonderry.
'This is grand,' Iain Caldwell, 11, of Londonderry, said Friday as he stood in a customs line at O'Hare International Airport with 159 other children, flown to Chicago by the Irish Children's Fund. 'I've been waitin' for months to step off that aeroplane.'
Robert O'Connor, an Irish immigrant who heads the fund, said this year's trip may be even more important than last summer's premier airlift.
'One very disturbing thing has been the recent election in Britain,' he said, alluding to the Irish Republican Army political wing's gaining a much higher percentage of the vote than ever before.
Six of the children's fathers died violently and several have fathers and older brothers in jail, he said.
'These children can be the peacemakers in their own land,' he said.
Past sorrows and prejudices melted to joy and anticipation when the children arrived in Chicago for their summer stay with adoptive families.
'I couldn't wait to get off that plane,' said Isobella Lamba, of Belfast, who will celebrate her 13th birthday Monday with her foster American family. 'It wasn't going fast enough for me. You could run beside that plane.
'I want to see every little bit of Chicago. It looks very, very big up in the air. At home, it's not nearly so big.'
Civic leaders might wince at some of the childrens' preconceptions - including one of the youngsters who said Chicago brought 'gangsters and dope sellers' to mind.
A committee of eight Irish people, mostly teachers, select the children, visit each at home and interview children and parents to make sure the child is able and willing to make the trip.
O'Connor said his organization raised $125,000 for this year's trip, $35,000 more than last year.
