Ballyporeen

President Reagan Remembered

By Niall O’Dowd
August / September 2004

August 1, 2004 by Leave a Comment

From Ballyporeen to the White House, Niall O'Dowd looks at President Reagan's Irish background, and recalls an interview with the President's brother, Neil. ℘℘℘ "Today I come back to you as a descendant of people who were buried here in pauper's graves." Thus did President Ronald Wilson Reagan announce himself when he visited the Irish village of Ballyporeen Co. Tipperary. It … [Read more...] about President Reagan Remembered

March 23, 1847

On this day in 1847, the Choctaw Native American tribe collected money to help starving victims of the Irish potato famine. Several years before, in 1831, President Andrew Jackson seized Choctaw territory in what is now southeastern Mississippi and parts of Alabama, forcing the Choctaw to travel five hundred miles along the “Trail of Tears” to reserved Indian Territory in Oklahoma. The Choctaw people sympathized with Ireland’s forced submission to Britain, and with the starvation and disease that plagued them. A group of Choctaws gathered in Scullyville, Oklahoma and raised $170, which they then forwarded to a U.S. famine relief organization. Though U.S. contribution in aid to Ireland totaled in the millions, the Choctaw donation was by far the most generous.

President Reagan Remembered

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