Irish Build Memorial to Choctaws Who Helped in Famine 160 years ago (Today's good news)

[ND-Dem]

A sculpture is being erected in Ireland to thank a Native American tribe for sending what little money they could to the Irish people suffering from starvation at the height of the Great Famine more than 160 years ago.

On March 23, 1847 the Choctaw Native American tribe, who had known great hardship during their forced march to Oklahoma, collected whatever spare money they could and sent $170 to Ireland through a charity relief group.

To remember their generosity and friendship, a huge stainless steel sculpture of nine eagle feathers will be installed in Midleton, County Cork, on a grassy expanse in the town’s Bailic Park.

The Choctaw people donated the money 16 years after they, and other tribes, were forced from their homelands in Mississippi, Alabama and Florida and made to walk 500 miles along what is now known as The Trail of Tears... during one of the coldest winters on record.

In today’s money, the $170 sacrificed by the Choctaw would be close to $4200.

Choctaw leaders have been invited to the grand unveiling, which will be in a few months.

http://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/irish-town-builds-memorial-to-thank-native-americans-who-helped-during-famine/

"In 1831, the Choctaw became the first Nation to be removed, and their removal served as the model for all future relocations."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trail_of_Tears

[Telcontar]

1. Awe inspiring

Faith in humanity...restored

[a kennedy]

41. That was over 160 years ago.....

I'd like to think something like that would happen now days but I've got my doubts.

[Major Nikon]

2. I've heard about this before

This is my tribe and the subject comes up from time to time. It's interesting they are building a memorial for it.

[Panich52]

3. I'm posting link to this OP in Native Am k&r

[Tuesday Afternoon]

10. good idea. thanks for doing it. K&R

[KT2000]

4. Beautiful gesture and

beautiful sculpture.

[avaistheone1]

5. Wonderful. What an amazing act of generosity.

My husband is of Choctaw ancestry.

[Sherman A1]

6. K&R!

[colorado_ufo]

7. What a beautiful memorial and gesture.

Compassion is a grace, and so is gratitude. It reminds me of Jesu's parable of The Widow's Mite.

[AverageJoe90]

8. Beautiful! =)

[Zorra]

9. Perfect. nt

[QuebecYank]

11. Another great story ignored by mainstream media

Thank you for posting this, or else I, and possibly others never would have learned of this.

[appalachiablue]

23. +10. Good news, inspiring. Will send to Irish friends, thanks.

[Warpy]

12. I hadn't heard about this before

although some of the most spirited discussions about Irish history have been with tribal folks here in NM. They recognized the British practiced on Ireland before they tried the same things with native tribes.

[Hekate]

13. The Irish have long memories, and this, for a change, is a good one

Thanks for bringing it here.

[PatrickforO]

14. The potato famine began in 1846 and for three successive harvests,

nearly the entire potato crop turned into a stinking black goo in the ground. Over 1 million Irish people starved.

What means so much about the Choctaw donation is that the British and Irish capitalists were STILL exporting grain from Ireland during this period in spite of the widespread starvation. Debt ridden Irish landlords got rid of their destitute tenant farmers by evicting them and then paying for them to cross the sea in coffin ships. At least 275,000 Irish emigrants died in those ships from disease and lack of food and water. They were called coffin ships because so many died. One story has it that sharks followed the ships because so many bodies were thrown overboard.

It started with Oliver Cromwell who invaded Ireland in 1649 and left a bloody trail across the land. He crushed all resistance by 1650, then evicted Irish farmers from their land all across the east coast and in northern Ireland and when they asked him where they should go, he is purported to have said, "Go to hell...or Connaught."

The laws the Irish lived under weren't designed to protect them; rather they were meant to exploit them and to extort the uttermost farthing of profit from an already poor populace. No one in power cared about the Irish. The feeling was they should starve because they were lazy anyway.

This is why the Choctaw gift meant so much. It isn't the amount, it is that they cared enough for another oppressed people to try and help. Bless them!

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

15. Informative and concise. Thx for that. nt

[Sherman A1]

16. Precisely

Mr. Cromwell really liked Ireland, just not the Irish Catholics and was very diligent about seeing to their removal by any means necessary.

[KT2000]

17. thank you -

and let us not forget that for the Catholic Irish, the Protestant charities often required them to forsake their Catholic religion and become Protestants to receive a meal.

[appalachiablue]

25. One of my Irish American friends said his aunts remembered how in the Irish schools if the police

came and found them not speaking English they shot the priests. That was in the 1920s I think.

[KT2000]

32. yes - the oppression

was hideous and cruel. My great aunt, who came from Ireland in the early 1900's, could never understand why relatives would want to visit Ireland. She said she would never ever go back. Lots of pain there at the time.

[appalachiablue]

43. Their treatment was horrible. My friend's great aunt came from Galway in 1926 at age 18.

Today is her birthday, she would be 107 years old. She passed in 2011 at age 103. Strong people, incredible history, from oppression in Ireland to opportunity in the US and other areas. I can understand why one would reduce memories and not want to return after building a new life elsewhere.

[KT2000]

44. My great aunt made

one week short of 100 and that is because she quit eating. The thought of a 100 year birthday party filled her with dread - because of the attention. She also would call my mother daily and tell her she was nearing the end of her road - that started when she was in her 60's. Strong people is right.
She was sent to America along with a brother and sister by their parents in hopes they could survive. They were each given a candlestick holder for the trip. I think knowing that has given me a decent perspective in life

slightly off topic but I got the CD of the singer Hozier. His lyrics are true Irish poetry - love-death-religion and nature on the dark side but still positive! Highly rec to others who are interested in that sort of thing.

[appalachiablue]

50. The fortitude of those who came here with little always amazes me. Two candlestick holders

for the siblings, very significant, special. I'm not familiar with the artist Hozier but will check it out.

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

39. While the British rule in Ireland was filled with atrocities

This was not one of them. Also, Ireland gained independence in 1921, so the Brits were shooting no one in Eire in the 1920s.

[appalachiablue]

42. JPN to MIS, Sat. March 21, 2015, 6:36 pm

Last edited Sat Mar 21, 2015, 11:08 PM - Edit history (1)

MIS:

"My great aunt Sarah was born in 1908 in Clifton, Galway. Her grade school years were 1914-1922. She attended a school in Clifton but catechism/religious study was forbidden. In spite of this the local priests (Irish-speaking) would travel to the school and clandestinely give the instruction. She said that a boy from the class was assigned to sit in the bell tower to watch for the British. If he saw them coming the priest disappeared and they hid the book in a secret compartment in the desk.

Toward the end of this period when she would have been in the 8th and 9th grades (1920-1922), the "Black and Tans" were active in the Galway area. They were a particularly brutal bunch known to have murdered at least one local priest. The "Black and Tans" (British Military Vets) were needed because members of the Irish Constabulary (Police) which had policed Ireland for more than a hundred years, were resigning at a rate of a hundred a week as they were increasingly viewed as collaborators.

Sarah left Ireland in 1926 at the age of 18 and came to America.
Today, March 21 is her birthday. She would be 107 years old. Sarah died in 2011 at the age of 103".

JPN
----------------------------------------------------------
"THE IRISH HAVE LONG MEMORIES...", #13. Hekate.

Formed in 1919, the Black and Tans were known for their brutality and attacks on civilian property and civilians. Many small towns and villages were sacked by the force beginning with Tuam in County Galway in July 1920 and then others. On Nov. 14, 1920 the Tans were suspected of abducting and murdering a Roman Catholic Priest, Father Michael Griffin, in Galway. (Wiki).

FYI (this will help you):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_and_Tans

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

47. That's not saying "The Brits shot priests for teaching Irish"

Which is what you claimed happened.

[appalachiablue]

48. "One of my Irish friends SAID his aunts remembered..." It's not what I claimed, it's what he said

and it's true. You have a healthy day.

[appalachiablue]

24. Great info., thanks much.

[Caretha]

27. I'm glad you posted this

My Father used to tell us children...."to NEVER forget the potato famine".

Being a child, I didn't quite get all the nuances of what he said, but now I do.

[appalachiablue]

51. It's heartening how we do remember (eventually) what our dear elders told us when young-

the way it's supposed to be thank God. I remember my parents experiences and knowledge now more than ever.

[Hekate]

31. One of my ancestresses came with her family on a coffin ship. She & her sister...

...were the only survivors in their family of that dreadful trip. After they were finally allowed to come ashore in Canada (a prudent public health measure in both Canada and the US was to have the disease-ridden passengers disembark on an island offshore until their health could be ascertained) they bumped into a man from their home village quite by accident. Eventually they crossed through to the US side of the border.

[appalachiablue]

52. Appreciate your sharing this incredible family history of two very brave women, what times.

[Starry Messenger]

36. *

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

38. The Great Famine was exacerbated by British policies.

Ever hear of the Corn Laws? These were protective tariffs on the importation of grain, mostly wheat, into the UK. Although thousands were dying of starvation in Ireland in 1845, the tariff remained in place until 1846. Before continuing, I should define "corn". According to my Merriam-Webster Dictionary,"corn" means "the grain of a cereal grass that is the primary crop of a region (as wheat in Britain, oats in Scotland and Ireland and maize in the United States and Canada)".

Lord Peel, the Prime Minister at the time, arranged for importation of "corn" from the US into Ireland. He thought he was ordering wheat, but when the Americans read "corn" on the order, they assumed he wanted maize and that's what was sent. There were two problems, however:

•The first shipments of maize did not reach Ireland until February 1846.

•The Irish had no experience with maize, which was not grown in Ireland. So they did not know how to prepare it for consumption. I daresay if you are presented with dried maize and told to eat it, you wouldn't know what to do with it either. Do you know that it has to be ground twice? The Irish certainly didn't.

In May 1846, Peel's government fell, and Lord John Russell (Bertrand Russell's grandfather) became PM. He set up a public works program in Ireland, which had also had a couple of problems. The first was that it was woefully underfunded. The second was that it was administered by probably the worst man for the job, Sir Charles Trevelyan.

Trevelyan believed that "the judgment of God sent the calamity to teach the Irish a lesson". The program was deliberately set up to make no improvements to Ireland. The men employed actually broke up existing roads and did not replace them.

I shall not go into the problems of land ownership and so on in Ireland.

[PatrickforO]

40. Yeah, stupid stuff, like Irish families who needed food were not allowed to take the soup away

from the relief office. They had to eat it there and then pass the can on to be refilled for someone else. British policymakers at the time said this was so because the Irish were lazy and had no self control. The 'fear' was that if allowed to take their soup home, they would instead sell it and buy whiskey.

Anything to demean and humiliate while in the process if inflicting a slow death by policy. Much like these idiots today who want people receiving SNAP or welfare assistance to take a drug test first. Because of course they are going to trade their family's monthly food ration for drugs!

[Marrah_G]

46. I believe it had a good deal to do with getting rid of alot of the diversity in the potato crops

Everyone started to grow mostly one kind, so when a blight happened it wiped out their main source of food.

[appalachiablue]

49. Good info. Cromwell's time was horrible, then the famine, exploitation and abuse as you write.

How the Irish faced serious oppression for centuries yet many survived is inspirational.

[malaise]

18. Lovely indeed

Human beings can be so caring ...and on the other hand...

[smirkymonkey]

19. Beautiful story!

Thanks for this!

[riversedge]

20. Lovely

[ohheckyeah]

21. Beautiful

sculpture for loving, gracious people. I'm happy the Irish are remembering such an amazing gift.

[demigoddess]

22. I honor the Choctaw but

I read in a history book that there was more food going out of Ireland (grown in Ireland and sent to England) during the Great Famine than there was coming in to alleviate the hunger. Read up on the history and you will find it was a lot like what our republicans would like to do to our middle class.

[cwydro]

26. k and r

[WillyT]

28. Huge K & R !!! - Thank You !!!

[Enthusiast]

29. Kicked and recommended a whole bunch!

[niyad]

30. k and r

[rafeh1]

33. british economic policies engineered famines in both Ireland and India

British economic policies were exactly what the republicans want for us.







http://yourstory.com/2014/08/bengal-famine-genocide/

[ND-Dem]

37. yes, and not the only time it happened.

[mackerel]

34. Middleton isn't one of Ireland's prettier cities. This oughta be a vast improvement.

[liberal_at_heart]

35. I have both Irish and Native American heritage. I had never heard of this story. How cool.

[Marrah_G]

45. damn, this one made me cry.........