Dublin tour guide’s touching gift kicks off TikTok search as he keeps Ireland’s link with Choctaw community alive (2024)

The hero in this story is Dublin tour guide Mark Ó Coighligh, who is as mad about history as he is about the Irish language.

One simple gesture he made last week sent ripples over to America and back, and nearly 180 years after the Famine, the special link between the Choctaw people and the Irish is being celebrated again.

Arkansas woman Jasmin Lyon (37) went on TikTok to tell the story of how her mother, sister and niece are in Ireland, and while on a tour bus they listened with interest as their guide explained the special relationship between the Choctaw people and Ireland.

On hearing of the plight of the Irish during the Famine, and having suffered famine themselves in the past, the Choctaw scraped together $170 (the equivalent of around €6,000 today) and sent it here in 1847.

It was a gesture that created a lasting bond. Mr Ó Coighligh did not know that some people connected to the Choctaw people were on the tour bus.

“We in Ireland have never forgotten this gesture of kindness and generosity, and we hold the Choctaw nation in very high respect and regard,” he told the tourists, later explaining how a statue of nine feathers in the shape of a bowl had been erected in Midleton, Co Cork, to honour that gesture.

In her video, Jasmin explained that she and her late father are Chickasaw and Choctaw descendants, and her mother told Mark this on the tour bus.

On hearing this, he gave Jasmin’s mother his Fáinne pin, which is worn by Irish-speakers and which he had on his jacket.

“He wanted to give me a gift, someone from across the pond who he has never met, just because he respects Choctaw people and what they did for Ireland,” Jasmin said on her video, before adding: “Go raibh maith agat.”

In another video, Jasmin asked whether any followers in Dublin could help her track down the then mystery tour guide so she could give a gift to him. All she had to go on at the time was that the tour company was Finn McCools Tours and the guide went by the name of Quiggs.

The Irish Independent tracked Mark down on his day off and he said he was surprised to learn his simple gesture had had such a deep effect.

“I do have a sense of history and the magnitude of that particular story of famine, and when I’m doing tours I like to give the human side of it, not just the dates and facts,” he said.

“History is often presented to us as this large, massive abstract thing from big dusty tomes, but it’s really just human beings interacting with one another, and more often than not it’s the small gestures in it that prove it’s not cold and unrelatable.”

“When people are on holidays here, they like to hear stories about history, so I try to give it a human element, and what the Choctaw people did is a real example of that.

“I had no idea that there were people on the tour who were related to Choctaws, and it had always been my intention to give my Fáinne to one if I met one, and here was my opportunity.

“It was cool to see Jasmin’s video. My message really is to be kind to each other. You don’t have to be connected to someone to make a difference, and that can have a ripple effect.”

Mark was also impressed with Jasmin’s “Go raibh maith agat” and said the Irish language was something very important to him.

“It’s something that has been part of my identity and the quintessence of my soul. I’m a custodian of it and I adore speaking it,” he said, adding that he would like to see more Irish-speakers wearing their Fáinne to encourage more people to converse in the language.

Jasmin now has Mark’s details and he is looking forward to hearing from her. Her grandmother was Choctaw-born. She is not an enrolled Choctaw herself, but she is organising with some enrolled Choctaws to pick a suitable return gift for Mark.