US Native tribes and Ireland's 170-year-old connection is renewed in the pandemic

When members of the Choctaw Nation heard about the struggles of the Irish in the Great Famine in 1847, the tribe gathered up about $170 — $5,000 in today’s dollars — to send overseas for “the relief of the starving poor of Ireland.”

That 170-year-old act is being remembered, and, in some ways, returned, during the coronavirus pandemic. Small donations from places like Cork, Limerick, and Dublin have poured in after a GoFundMe to support the Navajo and Hopi nations went viral in Ireland earlier this month.

“In Ireland, we never forgot the generosity of your Choctaw Brothers & Sisters. Happy to contribute something small for now,” wrote Sean O Dubhlain, sending $25 via the GoFundMe. Allison Kearney, donating $70, wrote it was “a small token of the gratitude from Ireland.”

The Choctaw gave the money to Ireland about 16 years after the Trail of Tears, America’s brutal forced relocation of the nation from the southeastern United States to Indian Territory in what is now Oklahoma. That gift, coming so soon after the nation’s own tragedy, is lodged into Irish collective memory. The story is taught in schools and has been honored with a sculpture in Middleton, in County Cork. Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar visited the Choctaw Nation in 2018 to pay tribute to the gift.

Read more: https://www.vox.com/2020/5/13/21251420/choctaw-ireland-navajo-hopi-gofundme-coronavirus