Walk the riverside paths
Beyond the monument, Bailick Park is a low-key public park of footpaths, benches and trees beside the Owenacurra River, just south of Midleton town centre — an easy, level stroll.
Bailick Park
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About
Bailick Park is a small riverside public park in Midleton best known for "Kindred Spirits", a towering memorial of nine stainless-steel eagle feathers shaped into an empty bowl, honouring the Choctaw Nation's famine-relief gift to Ireland.
Things to Do
See the Kindred Spirits sculpture
The park's centrepiece is a stainless-steel sculpture of nine eagle feathers arranged in a circle, no two identical, forming a bowl shape to represent a gift of food. Commissioned by Midleton Town Council, it was installed in 2015 and officially unveiled and dedicated in June 2017 by Chief Gary Batton of the Choctaw Nation.
Learn the Choctaw story
The memorial marks the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma's $170 donation to Irish famine relief in 1847, sent only sixteen years after their own Trail of Tears. It was commissioned by Cork County Council to be unveiled exactly 170 years after that gift. Artist Alex Pentek made over 20,000 welds to complete it.
Photograph the feathers
No two of the nine 20-foot (6.1 m) feathers are the same, so walk right around the circle for changing angles and reflections off the polished steel.
Plan Your Visit
- Hours: Open access — the park and sculpture can be viewed any time of the year and any time of the day.
- Parking: Free car park and paid car park available.
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