Irish Repay 150-year-old Debt to Native Americans

From the Irish Times:

IRISH people inspired by the generosity of Native Americans during the Famine have been digging deep to help communities impacted by coronavirus.

Donations have been flooding into the Navajo & Hopi Families Covid-19 Relief Fund, which was set up to help native Americans badly his by the pandemic.

The GoFundMe page has already raised around $1.7m (£1.3m), with scores of donations coming from Ireland.

A message on the donation page this week acknowledged the fundraising efforts on this side of the Atlantic.

Some of those who have donated have been inspired by the charity shown by the Choctaw Nation, which in 1847 handed over $170 ($5,000 today) towards famine relief.

In the years before the Irish famine thousands of Native Americans, including members of the Choctaw Nation, died during the Trail of Tears, which involved a series of forced relocations of around 60,000 people from their ancestral homelands to areas to the west of the Mississippi River.

It is reported that the Choctaw tribe also donated $8,000 to the Shell to Sea campaign, which opposed the construction of a natural gas pipeline in Co Mayo, in 2007.

Campaigner Vanessa Tulley revealed that in the current international health emergency Irish people are returning the charity shown to them.

One donation from Mairtin O’Riada contained the message: “Native American people sent us aid during the famine, I want to mark eternal friendship between our peoples”. Read more…

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