Weren't they making this into a movie or something?

Anyway: Abdulmecid I was sultan at a time when the Ottoman Empire's single greatest threat was the Russian Empire. And, as had been proven over and over again, the Ottomans would be exceptionally hard-pressed to defeat the Russians in a major war by this point. Abdulmecid sought to circumvent this liability by forming alliances with countries that could conceivably support him in event of war. Specifically, he wanted close ties with the UK (though far away, the British Army was a superb fighting force and the Royal Navy could get it to the region with relative ease) and France (basically the same thing, though France arguably had a better army and definitely had a worse navy). France and the UK had slowly begun cooperating more and more often during this period and would eventually intercede together on the Ottoman Empire's behalf (and France would also involve itself in the Second Opium War alongside the British).

Was it pure charity? No, of course not. Improving relations with the UK was a major strategic concern of Abdulmecid I's reign. But the sheer size of his humanitarian assistance, and his willingness to subvert Queen Victoria's implied restrictions and send additional aid (thereby risking the ire of London), strongly suggests that he was genuinely interested in helping the Irish. Political benefits appear to have been ancillary to all that.