Kindred Spirts
The Monument at Midleton County Cork
The Trail of Tears was an ethnic cleansing and forced displacement of approximately 60,000 people of the “Five Civilized Tribes” between 1830 and 1850 by the United States government. As part of the Indian removal, members of five Native American nations including the Choctaw were forcibly removed from their ancestral homelands in the Southeastern United States to newly designated Indian Territory west of the Mississippi River. The relocated peoples suffered from exposure, disease, and starvation while enroute to their newly designated Indian reserve. Thousands died from disease before reaching their destinations or shortly after.
The Irish Potato Famine was the mass starvation and spread of disease from 1845 to 1849. One million Irish died and more than a million left the country, causing Ireland’s population to drop by more than 20%. It is said that during the Trail of Tears, members of the Choctaw Nation heard about the Potato Famine from an Irish soldier. Only shortly after their relocation, Choctaw collected money to send to Ireland. The Choctaw of Skullyville donated $170 and the Choctaw of Doaksville donated $150. Both donations are valued at roughly $5000 today. The Cherokee Nation also donated $200. Other groups donated to the Irish, including former slaves in the Caribbean, prisoners in Sing Sing, as well as convicts on a prison ship in London. Padraig Kirwan is a senior lecturer at Goldsmiths University, and the co-author of Famine Pots: The Choctaw Irish Gift Exchange 1874-Present with LeAnne Howe from the Choctaw Nation. She says “There is a symbiosis of what it means to be a colonized people and to have lived through cultural trauma.” After being sent to Midleton in County Cork, funds were used to purchase food, blankets, and feed for livestock, which were distributed by the Quaker community.
In 2017: Kindred Spirits is a sculpture in Bailick Park, Midleton, County Cork, Ireland, which was unveiled in 2017 to acknowledge and thank the Choctaw Nation for their donation. The sculpture features nine 20-foot stainless steel eagle feathers.
In 2018: The Prime Minister of Ireland, Leo Varadkar, visited the Choctaw nation. There, he announced that members of the Choctaw tribe have the opportunity to earn scholarships and get free tuition at Irish universities. Ireland’s Consul General visited again the next year.
In 2019: Studies begin for the first recipient of the Choctaw-Ireland Scholarship Program. Recipients get full tuition at University College Cork as well as 10,000 euros for living expenses.
