The Niagara Irish Festival features rousing songs, popular musicians and delicious food.

But the third annual event also highlighted the deep business and cultural relationships between Canadians and the Irish people that have been forged over generations.

One of the most poignant is the financial aid made by 15 Indigenous bands to Irish famine relief in 1847.

And of those Indigenous contributions, Chief Kahewaquonaby, also known by his English name Peter Jones, and Chief Joseph Sawyer provided more than 12 pounds on behalf of the Mississaugas of the Credit River (the equivalent of 1,590 pounds today) at the exact time when the federal government was preparing to evict them from their ancestral homeland near Toronto.

In a letter, Jones and Sawyer said, “We fear their sufferings from wa

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