Choctaw Sculpture Dedicated Middleton Ireland

WCH:On 18 June 2017, a new sculpture in Midleton, Ireland, was dedicated to the Native American Choctaw nation, in recognition of support from the Choctaw people during the great famine in 1847. In the early 1830s, most of the Choctaw people were ethnically cleansed from their land in the present-day deep South in the Choctaw Trail of Tears, in which around 2,500 people died. Despite the resulting intense hardship, in 1847 upon hearing of mass starvation in Ireland, individual Choctaws collected $170 of their own money (worth around $5,300 in 2020) to send to Ireland to try to alleviate the suffering. While the great famine is sometimes spoken about as if it were a natural disaster, in reality like most famines it was man-made. In this instance, food in Ireland continued to be exported to Britain by the colonial power. One Choctaw person who visited the sculpture, designed by Alex Pentek, later reflected: "The monument was so much bigger then it looked like in the pictures. The feathers are absolutely stunning. The detail in each feather is meticulous. They are built to look like they will blow over, but in reality their steel construction represents the strength and resilience of the Choctaw people. The backdrop of the monument is a small lake that is surrounded by greenery and I was overcome and brought to tears by the honor I felt being a part of a tribe that cares about people as much as Choctaw Nation does."