Taoiseach will travel to Oklahoma to pay tribute to Choctaw nation

The Taoiseach is to travel to Oklahoma to thank the Choctaw nation for providing relief to Ireland during the Great Famine, more than 170 years after members of the nation of Native Americans donated to those starving 7,000km away here.

Leo Varadkar will travel to Durant, Oklahoma, next Monday to thank the Choctaw chief Gary Batton for the contribution made by his ancestors, and will make a presentation to the chief and the Choctaw nation.

In March 1847, the Choctaw people of Oklahoma collected some $710, the equivalent of several thousand dollars today, for famine relief here. It came only 16 years after the infamous Trail of Tears, when tribes were relocated from their lands, and when the Choctaw were living in relative poverty.