[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 122 (Wednesday, July 26, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10728-S10729]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


         IRISH-AMERICANS IN MISSISSIPPI TO HONOR CHOCTAW NATION

  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, this year marks the 150th anniversary of 
the beginning of the Great Famine in Ireland. While large numbers of 
men, women, and children were dying of starvation in Ireland in those 
tragic years, a group of Native Americans in this country tried to 
help.
  The Choctaw Nation of North America raised $170 in 1847--the 
equivalent of about $3,000 today--for the victims of the Irish famine. 
Their contribution may have been small in terms of its 

[[Page S10729]]
ability to affect the massive human tragedy taking place in Ireland, 
but it was a generous symbol of the compassion of the Choctaw Nation 
for those in desperate need. Sixteen years before the famine began, the 
Choctaws themselves were the victims of a forced displacement following 
passage of the Indian Removal Act of 1830, which compelled most Native 
Americans to move west of the Mississippi River. Many died on the 
journey known as the Trail of Tears. Yet despite their own tragic 
circumstances, the Choctaw reached out to the Irish people, whom they 
saw as more in pain and in need than themselves.
  Earlier this year, President Mary Robinson of Ireland visited the 
tribal headquarters of the Choctaw Nation in Durant, OK, to thank the 
Choctaws personally for their ancestors' extraordinary generosity to 
the Irish people. President Robinson often evokes the story of the 
Choctaw Nation when talking about the Famine and about how the echoes 
of Ireland's tragic past continue to reverberate in Ireland today, 
giving the Irish a special affinity for those around the world who face 
hunger and oppression.
  Everyone familiar with global humanitarian efforts knows that Irish 
aid workers are often the first to arrive to help at places of 
devastation around the world. President Robinson herself was one of the 
first to visit Somalia, and to call the world's attention to the 
starvation there.
  His Eminence Bernard Cardinal Law, the Archbishop of Boston, recently 
informed me that Irish-Americans in Mississippi will honor the Choctaw 
Nation on September 9 and 10 with a picnic at the Jim Buck Ross 
Agricultural Museum in Jackson, MS. The sponsors are hopeful that 
Irish-Americans in other parts of the country will enhance the success 
of this tribute. Anyone interested in learning more about this 
auspicious occasion should contact Mr. Sean McGuinness at the Celtic-
American Heritage Society, Post Office Box 5166, Jackson, MS 39296-
5166.
  I commend the Hibernian Society for this well-deserved honor for the 
Choctaw Nation.


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