TBT: Super Awesome People™ in History.
In the mid-19th century, Ireland was caught in the midst of the Great Hunger, also known as the Irish Potato Famine. The microorganism Phytophthora infestans had infested Ireland’s potato crop in 1845, causing a blight that spread rapidly throughout the British colony and destroying half of Ireland’s potatoes that year. Over the next seven years, three-quarters of the Irish potato crop failed due to the infestation, and one million Irish people died of starvation while another million fled the country as refugees.
Although U.S. history books usually acknowledge the Irish Potato Famine, they fail to mention how the Native Americans responded. When the Choctaw Nation learned of the potato famine, the Choctaw people felt great empathy for those suffering in Ireland, more than 4,000 miles away. The Choctaw people were still rebuilding their lives in 1847, sixteen years after they were forced out of their homeland during the Trail of Tears, and they felt a kindred with the Irish, remembering all too-well the devastating effects of disease and heartache. With the assistance of the philanthropist Myndert van Schaick, the Choctaw Nation collected money to gift to families in Ireland, donating at least $170, or the equivalent of more than $5,000 today.
Alex Pentek’s Kindred Spirits, 2015 
Navajo & Hopi Families COVID-19 Relief Fund (Ethel Branch, GoFundMe)
The Irish people have never forgotten the Choctaw Nation’s kindness. In 1992, eight Irish men and women walked the 600-mile Trail of Tears to raise money for a famine relief effort in Somalia. In 1995, the Irish President Mary Robinson visited the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma to the thank the Choctaws for their generosity to the Irish people nearly 150 years prior. In 2015, the Irish artist Alex Pentek finished his “Kindred Spirits” sculpture which commemorates the Choctaw Nation’s gift. The 20-foot sculpture is of nine large stainless steel feathers shaped into an empty bowl and is on permanent display at Bailic Park in County Cork, Ireland.
And now, amidst a pandemic that has been disproportionately devastating to Native American tribes, the Irish people are expressing their thanks once again. The Navajo & Hopi Families COVID-19 Relief Fund has received numerous donations from Irish people who have acknowledged that the Choctaws’ generosity in 1847 has inspired their donations for COVID-19 relief, 173 years later. More than $3.7 million dollars has been raised so far by more than 68,000 donors.
“Thousands of miles away, in no way linked to the Choctaw Nation until then, the only link being a common humanity, a common sense of another people suffering as the Choctaw Nation had suffered when being removed from their tribal land.”
Irish President Mary Robinson , thanking the Choctaw Nation in 1995
Kindness and generosity are rarely forgotten. Selfless gestures, both big and small, can change lives, instill hope, and connect the world across continents and centuries.