Kindred Spirits on St. Patrick's Day
The Irish do love a good story and a good celebration. The celebration of St. Patrick’s Day has evolved from the observance of the death of St. Patrick in the fifth century into a celebration of Irish culture and heritage. The corned beef, cabbage, potatoes and Guinness I understand, the green beer–not so much.
While the modern day “Wearing O’ the Green” for many, adds to the fun, the original adoption of green ribbons, clothing and hats by the Society of United Irishmen and the street ballad “The Wearing of the Green” (lamenting the oppression of the 1798 Irish rebellion) was never known by many and forgotten by most.
During the 700 years of British colonial rule of Ireland, the Irish like all subjects of British settler colonialism suffered violence and coercion to further the economic power of the Empire. The methods of how to control native populations, the land and natural resources varied from empire to empire, but those methods resulted in resistance and often wars of rebellion. World wide, whether in Ireland, India, Africa, Asia the Americas or the Palestinian state– people, eventually, will reject their oppressors.
On this St. Patrick’s Day we would do well to remember a chapter of often forgotten history, the relationship between the Irish people and the Choctaw Nation. In 1847, during the worst of the Irish famine, the Choctaw nation, roughly 15 years after their forced journey from their ancestral home in Mississippi to Indian territory in Oklahoma the “trail of tears and death”, collected and sent $170 –over $5,000 in today’s money to Midleton in County Cork Ireland.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/03/17/kindred-spirits-on-st-patricks-day/
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