MCALESTER, Okla. — In 1847, Ireland was dying.
A potato disease epidemic exacerbated by the British government (which controlled the entire island of Ireland at the time) exporting all other suitable Irish crops caused a widespread famine.
WATCH: 'A glowing example': McAlester taps into Choctaw history with pursuing Irish sister city
The Great Famine led to a million people dead and a quarter of the island's population emigrating for a better life - or life itself.
But then the Choctaw Nation, still reeling from its own suffering in the Trail of Tears, caught wind of that struggle, and decided to lend a helping hand.
"Their generosity and their compassion is just, at that time, is just incredible," former McAlester mayor John Browne said. "They were extremely poor, and they saw some people suffering, and they did what they could to help."
It's a story the former mayor knows well, having been born in Ireland himself and married to a Choctaw citizen.
At the height of the famine, the Choctaw Nation raised $170 among its own people to send to the Irish as a token of solidarity and survival. The donation equates to about $5,000 in today's money.
It wasn't much, but East Cork Municipal District's Councillor Rory Cocking said it saved lives.
"They realized that the people of Ireland were suffering, and they gave aid when they did not have to, and substantial aid, to different people that were suffering across the Atlantic Ocean," Cocking told 2 News via Zoom on Nov. 25.
Choctaw Nation public arts manager Claire Green Young knows the relationship personally. She earned her master's degree at University College Cork through the Choctaw-Ireland Scholarship Programme.
"It's really special to feel so cared for both by my tribe and my people, and then to come to a foreign country where you don't know anyone and to meet people - taxi drivers...who have heard about this connection," Young said. "Many folks in Ireland are aware of the connection with the Choctaw Nation, especially people in County Cork. The Kindred Spirits Monument...is a public art installation in Midleton County Cork."
After former mayor Browne visited the monument and with Cocking in September, he got in contact with the current City of McAlester leadership and communications director Adrian O'Hanlon, himself of Irish descent.
"We were like, 'How cool would it be if a town our size had a sister city?'" O'Hanlon said. "You have Tulsa, Oklahoma City, Stillwater, all these others that do it. Why not us?"
Fast forward to November and the sister cities proposal has passed with unanimous support in McAlester, a plus being that it doesn't require the use of any tax dollars.
"Already having that relationship with Ireland and the Choctaw Nation from the Potato Famine was an easy choice to celebrate that history and showcase (it)," current mayor Justin Few told 2 news on Nov. 20.
Cocking said the bureaucratic process is more convoluted in Irish local governing - even for a sister cities proposal - so the partnership with McAlester likely won't be finalized until the first half of 2026.
Cocking added that his colleagues do support bringing the two communities' shared history together again, though.
"It is important to showcase that history, which now has been done on both sides," the Irish municipal leader said. "But it's about building on that to further showcase it so that we have tangible reflection in even our own local communities about such an important part of our history."
"Thanksgiving is a holiday with a complicated past and lots of different connotations for many different people," Young said. "And to me, it really is about embodying that spirit of gratefulness and thankfulness. The Choctaw gift to the Irish is certainly, I think, a glowing example of that."
"I think to have gone through something as significant as (The Trail of Tears) and then to hear about a people facing a different form of genocide through the famine, and to have this desire to give back and to support those individuals - even from so far away - it's just a testament to who we were and who we are."
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