Abstract
This chapter examines the lives and work of two of the most important diplomats from the island of Ireland in the nineteenth century. Both Robert Hart and John Pope-Hennessy worked for the British Empire and Robert Hart also worked for the Qing Dynasty of China. This chapter examines their careers as Irish expats and the nature of their work for the British and Chinese Empires. It also examines how their Irishness might have influenced their work for the British Empire. The chapter also publishes for the first time an illuminating and enlightening letter from Robert Hart to Hennessy from 1880 on the future commercial landscape of China and the Greater China Region. It also publishes for the first time a somewhat harrowing account of John Pope Hennessy’s first-hand experience of the Irish Famine.
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Notes
- 1.
Hong Kong is often described as the most unequal city in the developed world. The English language plays a major role in perpetuating class distinctions and divisions in Hong Kong. A recent report puts Hong Kong in second place, behind New York, in a table of the most unequal cities. It has a Gini coefficient of 0.539: http://www.businessinsider.com/hong-kong-wealth-gap-problem-2017-6
- 2.
Robert Hart. The I. G. in Peking: Letters of Robert Hart, Chinese Maritime Customs, 1868–1907. Volume One. Eds. John King Fairbank, Katherine Frost Bruner and Elizabeth MacLeod Matheson. Introduction. L. K. Little. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1975.
- 3.
Zhao Changtian. An Irishman in China: Robert Hart, Inspector General of the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs. Trans. Yang Shuhui and Yang Yunqin. Shanghai: Shanghai Press and Publishing Development Company, 2014.
- 4.
Mark O’Neill. Ireland’s Imperial Mandarin: How Sir Robert Hart Became the Most Influential Foreigner in Qing China. Hong Kong: Joint Publishing, 2017.
- 5.
Robert Hart. The I. G. in Peking: Letters of Robert Hart, Chinese Maritime Customs, 1868–1907. Volume Two. Eds. John King Fairbank, Katherine Frost Bruner and Elizabeth MacLeod Matheson. Introduction. L. K. Little. Cambridge, MA.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1975, p. 1193.
- 6.
Hart’s article “China and reconstruction, Nov., 1900” appeared in the Fortnightly Review for January 1901.
- 7.
in Kate Lowe and Eugene McLaughlin “Sir John Pope Hennessy and the “Native Race Craze”, 228.
- 8.
An Claidheamh Soluis, 7 Sep. 1907.
- 9.
Fanning, 133.
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O’Neill, Mark. Ireland’s Imperial Mandarin: How Sir Robert Hart Became the Most Influential Foreigner in Qing China. Hong Kong: Joint Publishing, 2017.
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O’Sullivan, M. (2018). Irish Expat Empire Builders in China and Hong Kong: Robert Hart and John Pope Hennessy. In: Irish Expatriatism, Language and Literature. New Directions in Irish and Irish American Literature. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95900-9_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95900-9_8
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