SANDPOINT — Catholics, Protestants, children, women and men. The innocent and the directly involved. When it came to misery and death, “The Troubles” in Northern Ireland paid no heed to age, religion or political affiliation.

There was more than enough violence to go around.

An award-winning documentary film on that dark era and the light that sprang from it will be shown on Nov. 1, at the Panida Theater, in partnership with the Sandpoint Film Festival.

Titled “How to Defuse a Bomb: The Project Children Story,” the film — narrated by Liam Neeson — chronicles how one soul answered the call when the heart beckoned it to teach peace by example.

Founded in 1975 by New York Police Department Bomb Squad member Denis Mulcahy, Project Children reached into Belfast — at the time bearing the ugly distinction of being the most-bombed city in the world — and removed children between the ages of 9-12 to spend a summer with host families in the U.S.

“At the time of ‘The Troubles,’ they were bringing a vast number of kids in — about 600 a year,” said Anthony Massey, the Colorado coordinator for Project Children.

Massey, who will be on hand for the Nov. 1 screening of the documentary in Sandpoint, both hosted children with his wife and family and arranged for other families to do so in Colorado as part of a multi-state effort that, at its peak, had Aer Lingus flying two jumbo jets filled with Irish children to the states at the beginning of every summer.

“The original intent was removing kids from Northern Ireland and the bombings,” he said. “Put yourself in the shoes of their parents — you were basically getting your children out of war and extreme violence.”

Look up the history of those tragic events today and you’re apt to find them described in sanitized terms such as “an ethno-nationalist conflict.” For those who suffered through the decades of carnage that lasted from 1968-1998, the devastation had a human face.

Though bound by tensions between the Protestant majority and the Catholic minority in Northern Ireland, the violence had deeper political roots, with “unionists” intent on staying part of the United Kingdom and factions of the Provisional Irish Republican Army resolute in fighting what they called “a long war” for Irish unification and self-rule and the complete withdrawal of the British.

When British troops were sent in to maintain peace in 1969, the situation devolved into chaos.

“People were living in locked-down neighborhoods, surrounded by barbed wire and patrolled by soldiers,” Massey said. “Summer would be the season of basically sequestering kids in their Catholic or Protestant neighborhoods.”

Parents, desperate to save the lives of their children, saw what would normally be seen as an extreme measure as a possible way out of the violence.

“It was a leap of faith for these families to take such an amazing risk with Project Children,” said Massey. “But it made a difference — the kids came back transformed.”

Instead of being cloistered by religious association, wondering when and where the next bomb might go off, they suddenly found themselves in a state of peaceful cohabitation, taking summer vacations with host families or spending days at the lake with kids from every conceivable background.

“When they joined a family, they never knew that they might be playing with a kid from ‘the other side of the fence’ — and that shocked them,” Massey said. “In America, they didn’t have to have their antennae up to determine friend or foe.

“They came back home without the desire to hate or to look at the other side as the enemy,” he went on. “It gave them confidence that they could influence that belief as they got older.”

In the 30 years between the start of “The Troubles” and the signing of a peace accord known as the Good Friday Agreement on April 10, 1998, more than 3,600 people had died in the violence, with another 50,000 being maimed or injured by IRA bombs or the plastic bullets fired by soldiers.

Standing counter to those statistics are the 23,000 children Project Children brought from Northern Ireland to the U.S. in the 40-year period that ended last year.

The 9-12 age group was chosen for two, closely related, reasons: To work with kids old enough to be able to put the experience into context while, according to Massey, “getting the attention of the child while they still have a childlike view.”

For some, the metrics involved in the Northern Ireland story might barely register on the psyche. Massey points out that, on a per capita basis, the number of dead and wounded in Ireland had the same level of loss that the Civil War exacted from the United States.

Without the initial work of Mulcahy, Project Children might never have gotten off the ground. He was, however, buoyed by the natural affinity the Irish have for America and the “Yanks,” in general.

“The memory of the Diaspora — the hunger and famine that pushed so many Irish over here — creates a deep, emotional connection,” Massey said. “And so many of us in America have a first-generation connection to all of that.”

The same chemistry proved to be the variable that made Project Children a success, according to the program coordinator.

“Hosting these children also affected attitudes in America toward the conflict in Northern Ireland,” he said. “It made people here wake up and become inspired to be part of the effort to bring peace.”

When the word started to spread from the Irish communities in New York and New Jersey and fan out across the U.S., a movement was afoot.

“Once you get the Irish going on a cause, it’s infectious, the energy they bring,” Massey said.

“How to Defuse a Bomb: The Project Children Story” recounts the experience of several kids who made the summer trip to America, catching up with them in recent years as they share the way it changed their lives and the views they brought back home with them.

The work, though, is not done, Massey noted, which is where the documentary picks up the thread.

“You still have Catholic and Protestant neighborhoods; you still have divided schools,” he said. “And the fabric of the society is still very divided.

“That’s why we’re going to continue working on this message – both here in America and back in Ireland,” he added, calling the film “important and very timely.”

“It’s a story that reflects on our current times and polarized environment,” said Massey. “It’s a positive message that the producers thought would be well-received in America.”

The documentary’s inclusion in the Sandpoint Film Festival is part of a grassroots push to get the film in front of U.S. viewers, despite the lack of any movie studio machinery to support that effort. Although previously aired on the BBC and chosen for multiple awards in Ireland, the film has not been licensed in the U.S., making the Panida showing a truly special event.

“Promoting the film has been left to those of us who feel we want to share this message as an investment in the cause,” Massey said.

“How to Defuse a Bomb: The Project Children Story” will be shown on Nov. 1, at 7:30 p.m., at the Panida Theater in downtown Sandpoint, with Massey on hand to present the film.

Admission is free, but donations to Project Children will be gladly accepted at the event.

For more information on Project Children, visit: projectchildren.org. To view the film’s trailer, visit: vimeo.com/180118286.