Irish prime minister visits the Choctaws to thank them for $170 donation 171 years ago

Choctaw Nation Chief Gary Batton presents Ireland Prime Minister Leo Varadkar with a Choctaw flute during Varadkar's visit to the Choctaw Nation in Durant. [Photo by Chris Landsberger, The Oklahoman]

DURANT — Two nations bound by 19th-century tragedies — one natural, another man-made — rekindled their unlikely friendship Monday when Ireland Prime Minister Leo Varadkar addressed the Choctaw Nation.

“The story of our two peoples — the Irish people and the Choctaw people — symbolizes the spirit of St. Patrick, our patron saint, perhaps better than anything else,” Varadkar told a gathering of tribal elders and dignitaries.

Varadkar visited to thank the tribe for $170 given 171 years ago.

In 1847, as a devastating potato famine was killing a million people in Ireland and forcing two million more to flee, the Choctaw tribe — still recovering from forced migration along the Trail of Tears — collected money and sent it to Dublin for the benefit of complete strangers thousands of miles away.