The Choctaw Gift to Ireland During the Great Hunger
Since the Library has been closed since March 15, 2020 due to concerns over the potential spread of the coronavirus COVID-19, OCPL has started a new online initiative to bring “Lunch With Books” to you virtually every Tuesday until we can meet again in the Library Auditorium. Please enjoy our new “Lunch With Books: Livestream Editions.”
In August 1846, potato blight reappeared in Ireland—earlier and more deadly than in 1845. Regardless of the fact that the Irish poor were confronting a crisis far more immediate and serious than in the previous year, the British government introduced a series of relief measures that proved to be inappropriate and inadequate for a people on the verge of starvation. As official relief broke down and people started to die, an international fund-raising effort gathered momentum, with donations coming from as far away as China, the Caribbean, the Cape of South Africa, Venezuela, New Zealand, and North America. The money raised cut across divisions of class, race, gender, and ethnicity, with many coming from people who had no direct connection with Ireland. Of the thousands of contributions sent to help the Irish poor, a number stand out as remarkable, as they came from people who were themselves impoverished and marginalized. These include donations from Native Americans, most notably the Choctaws and the Cherokees.
This presentation will explore the gift made by the Choctaw Nation in 1847, and how it has been remembered in Ireland and by the Choctaw Nation.
Christine Kinealy is author of Charity and the Great Hunger in Ireland: The Kindness of Strangers. She id director of Ireland’s Great Hunger Institute at Quinnipiac University. She has spoken previously at Lunch With Books, about Frederick Douglass in Ireland in February 2019.
