WHOOPS OF JOY AS LEO THE BRAVE KEEPS EYE ON BALL WITH CHOCTAWS...
IT was the moment Leo Varadkar tried the ancient game of stickball as he communed with the Choctaw nation in Oklahoma. The Taoiseach had been presented with a pair of stickball implements – both are used together like outgrown chopsticks in pursuit of trapping a ball. The Choctaw game can be traced back hundreds of years BC. Disaster threatened when Leo was invited to play. ‘It looks very hard,’ he said, as the crowd tittered.
His first effort to catch a lobbed ball failed, as did his second – but on his third attempt he managed a great catch and the crowd fairly roared its approval. ‘We need to sign you up,’ said Chief Gary Batton.
Earlier Leo channelled the Queen at Dublin Castle when he spoke a few words in Choctaw, delighting his hosts further. He expressed gratitude to the tribal nation in Durant, Oklahoma, for their now-famous donation of $170 during the 1847 Famine to relieve suffering in Ireland, an enormous sum back then for an impoverished tribe.
Leo’s ‘cúpla focal’ in the Native American tongue went down just as well as Elizabeth II’s ‘a Uachtaráin agus a chairde’ when she visited Ireland in 2011. He explained he was the Minko, or chieftain of government in Ireland, with the word ‘taoiseach’ meaning chief – only for Chief Batton to respond with a perfect ‘Dia dhuit’.
The two nations had a shared history of tragedy, Chief Batton said, adding that while the Taoiseach was here to say thank you for the Famine donation, the Choctaw people were also saying ‘yano ki’ for his very presence. After his few words in Choctaw, which drew applause, the Taoiseach said: ‘I hope that makes sense. Your pronunciation, Chief, of Dia dhuit, was perfect.’
He added: ‘Back in the 19th century, when the Irish people were oppressed, abused, neglected and degraded by our colonial master, at our lowest, your spirit of generosity was at its highest. You showed compassion to a starving people, who were dying in their hundreds of thousands... Your act of kinship, love and generosity almost two centuries ago is memorialised in Ireland’s history books and has been commemorated on many occasions.’
Just last year, Chief Batton led a Choctaw delegation to Ireland for the unveiling of the poignant memorial in Midleton, Co. Cork, to the Famine gift, a beautiful sculpture called Kindred Spirits. ‘This is our way of saying that your act of kindness has never been, and never will be, forgotten in Ireland,’ the Taoiseach said.
Presley Byington, a flautist in traditional dress, played an instrument decorated in the Choctaw colours of red and black. There was an exchange of gifts, with the Taoiseach receiving the Choctaw flute that had just been played and Chief Batton receiving a bodhrán and hurley, as well as a book called The Atlas Of The Great Famine.
Mr Varadkar maintained a smile of gratitude as he was treated to a Choctaw war dance by 12 men and women, complete with stomping and whooping.
Earlier the Taoiseach had been introduced to Tony Ward, a Choctaw governor from Broken Bow. ‘We had a rugby player of that name,’ the Taoiseach said, perhaps with one eye on Saturday’s Grand Slam showdown with England – another game that is set to be tribal in the extreme. Today, the Taoiseach flies to Washington, where he’ll have his own big game encounter with President Donald Trump on Thursday.