Belfast Film Festival

Irish Pride Stands Astride the Atlantic

By Róisín Chapman
IA Newsletter November 6, 2021

November 5, 2021 by Leave a Comment

Protests over closure of Ireland's Great Hunger Museum As the United States begins to return to a post-pandemic normality, the “end-emic” may not see the re-opening of one beloved institution for the Irish American community. Protests have been held over the closing of Ireland’s Great Hunger Museum at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. The museum, which displays … [Read more...] about Irish Pride Stands Astride the Atlantic

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.

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