The first-ever U.S. institution to create a museum dedicated entirely to Ireland's Great Hunger is set to host a conference on the Irish famine, the starvation, and their consequences.

The Ireland's Great Hunger Institute at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, CT is running the four-day conference from Wednesday, June 18 through Saturday, June 21.

It is the first of two components of the 20th biennial meeting of the Ulster-American Heritage Symposium.

This year’s symposium is called "Irish hunger, poverty and migration: A Trans-Atlantic perspective.”

About 40 scholarly papers will be presented. In addition to the academic papers, conference activities will also include visiting the Great Hunger Collection at Quinnipiac, the Famine Memorial and the St. Patrick's Cathedral Exhibition at the Consulate of Ireland in NYC, and tours of Ireland's Great Hunger Museum in Hamden, CT, the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven and the Lady Sligo Exhibition at Quinnipiac.

The Ulster-American Heritage Symposium has met every two years since 1976, alternating between co-sponsoring universities and museums in Northern Ireland and North America, “to encourage scholarly study and public awareness of the historical connections between Ulster and North America.”

This year’s symposium will have two different programs. The first program will be hosted by Quinnipiac University and will have the theme 'Emigration before, during and after the Great Hunger.’ The second program is to be hosted by the T.R.R. Cobb House and the University of Georgia in Athens, GA from Wednesday, June 25 to Saturday, June 28.