Join Georgian Papers Programme scholar Angel-Luke O’Donnell for an online version of the popular GPP Coffee Break series at King’s College London.

Join us on March 30, 2021, at 3:30 pm GST (10:30 am EST) for a presentation by Mary Louise O’Donnell, “Erin’s King: the politics and pageantry of George IV’s visit to Ireland in 1821.”

This year marks the bicentenary of George IV’s visit to Ireland in August/September 1821. The visit was preceded by several meetings in Dublin in July 1821, at which civic leaders and politicians representing various religious and political groups agreed to present a united front and not to use the visit as an opportunity to address Catholic and nationalist grievances. This display of unity amongst George IV’s Irish subjects was unprecedented. This short talk focuses on how George IV was represented as a unifying figure -‘Erin’s King’ – in contemporary songs and ballads and how aspects of Irish culture were used to reinforce this concept.

Mary Louise O’Donnell is a harpist and musicologist who has performed extensively throughout Ireland, Europe, Africa and Asia as a soloist and with various ensembles. She has published widely on topics relating to Irish cultural history, semiotics and performance studies; her first book, Ireland’s Harp: The Shaping of Irish Identity c. 1770-1880, was published in 2014 by UCD Press. Mary Louise has received many awards and grants to further her research, including an Irish Research Council Postdoctoral Fellowship, Fulbright Scholarship, Centre Culturel Irlandais Fellowship and Dobbin Scholarship (ICUF).

About the series

The Georgian Papers Programme (GPP) coffee breaks are an informal opportunity for researchers throughout the world to gather together virtually to discuss ongoing projects. Each session will have a short presentation from a GPP researcher and then we will open discussion out for questions about the project, suggestions for related material, or general conversation about the archives and research. The presenters in these events will often be in the early stages of their project and the coffee breaks aim to facilitate the exchange of knowledge about both the materials in Windsor as well as other repositories throughout the world.

We will limit the size of these events to 40 participants in order to encourage discussion among and between us. No recordings are made of the discussions and no tweeting or posting on other social media platforms during the event is permitted in order to create a trusted working environment for developing projects.