Christine Kinealy, professor of history and director of Ireland's Great Hunger Institute, Quinnipiac University, presents "Charity and the Great Hunger: The Kindness of Strangers." The Great Irish Famine was one of the most devastating humanitarian disasters of the 19th century. In a period of five years, Ireland lost approximately one-quarter of its population through a combination of death and emigration. A lesser-known aspect of the famine is the extent to which people throughout the world mobilized to provide money, food and clothing to assist the starving Irish.