Kindred Spirits (sculpture)

Kindred Spirits is a large stainless steel outdoor sculpture in Bailick Park in Midleton, County Cork, Ireland.[1][2]

Photo of Kindred Spirits sculpture, Midleton, County Cork.

Kindred Spirits commemorates the 1847 donation by the Native American Choctaw People to Irish famine relief during the Great Hunger, despite the Choctaw themselves living in hardship and poverty and having recently endured the Trail of Tears.[2][3][4] While records of the exact amount of the donation vary, the figure usually given is US$170[5] (about $4,700 in 2019 inflation-adjusted dollars, though some methods indicate it could have been as high as $20,000 in 2015 dollars).[note 1] In the U.S. coinage of the time, U.S.$170 meant 8.22 troy ounces of physical gold, or about US$14,000 in 2020 prices.

The sculpture consists of nine 20-foot (6.1 m) stainless steel eagle feathers arranged in a circle, no two feathers being identical, forming a bowl shape to represent a gift of a bowl of food.[7][8][9] It was created by Alex Pentek at the Sculpture Factory in Cork, Ireland, with assistance from students of the Crawford College of Art and Design, and installed in Bailick Park in 2015.[5][1][10][2][11][12][9] The memorial was commissioned by Midleton Town Council,[13][14] and was officially unveiled and dedicated in June 2017 by Chief Gary Batton, Chief of the Choctaw Nation, Assistant Chief Jack Austin Jr., and Councillor Seamus McGrath, County Mayor of Cork, accompanied by a 20-strong delegation from the Choctaw Nation.[15][16][9][14][17]