IRISH RETURN A 173-YEAR-OLD FAVOR TO TRIBES IN THE UNITED STATES

Donate to fundraiser to aid Navajo, Hopi amid pandemic

DUBLIN

More than 170 years ago, the Choctaw Nation sent $170 to starving Irish families during the potato famine. A sculpture in County Cork commemorates the generosity of the tribe, itself poor.

In recent decades, ties between Ireland and the Native American tribe have grown.

Now hundreds of Irish people are repaying that old kindness, giving to a charity drive for two tribes suffering in the COVID-19 pandemic. As of Tuesday, the fundraiser has raised more than $2 million to help supply clean water, food and health supplies to people in the Navajo Nation and the Hopi Reservation, according to organizers, though it was not clear how much of the money has come from Irish donors.

Many donors cited the generosity of the Choctaws, noting that the gift came not long after the U.S. government forcibly relocated the tribe and several other American Indian groups from the Southeastern United States, a march across thousands of miles known as the Trail of Tears that left thousands of people dead along the way.

“I’d already known what the Choctaw did in the famine, so short a time after they’d been through the Trail of Tears,” Sean Callahan, 43, an Apple administrator in Cork City who made a donation, said Tuesday. “It always struck me for its kindness and generosity and I see that too in the Irish people. It seemed the right time to try and pay it back in kind.”

On Sunday the organizers wrote in praise of “acts of kindness from indigenous ancestors passed being reciprocated nearly 200 years later through blood memory and interconnectedness.”

“Thank you, IRELAND, for showing solidarity and being here for us,” one said on the Gofundme page.

Gary Batton, chief of the Choctaw Nation Oklahoma, said in a statement Tuesday that the tribe was “gratified — and perhaps not at all surprised — to learn of the assistance our special friends, the Irish, are giving to the

Navajo and Hopi Nations.”

“We have become kindred spirits with the Irish in the years since the Irish potato famine,” he said. “We hope the Irish, Navajo and Hopi peoples develop lasting friendships, as we have.”

News of the donations from Ireland came as the coronavirus has been ripping through tribal lands. The Navajo Nation has seen more than 2,700 coronavirus cases and 70 deaths as of Monday.