The statue of the popular governor Sir Arthur Kennedy stood in the Botanical Gardens.

Every red-blooded Irishman gets irritated by the exaggerated claims that Hong Kong was once a Scottish colony, founded by the Scots and run by the Scots. As St. Patrick’s Day falls on the 17th of this month, it is about time somebody gave the Irish their due credit.

It is true that Scottish traders like William Jardine, James Matheson and James Innes, the Laird of Dunkinty, started the Opium War which caused Hong Kong to be ceded to the British, but it was the Irish who had to do most of the fighting.

Captain Charles Elliot (another Scot) first took possession of Hong Kong but it was left to two great Irishmen, the first governor of Hong Kong, Sir Henry Pottinger and Major-General Sir Hugh Gough, to clean up the mess.

When Pottinger stepped ashore to sign the Treaty of Nanking, the band played St Patrick’s Day, not Scotland for Ever, and it was the 18th (Royal Irish) Regiment who acted as his guard of honour. They had borne the brunt of the fighting, with a little help from the Indian Army and 48 gunboats.

Sir Henry Pottinger was a man of action. Before he was 21, he had set off on a spying mission through Baluchistan, Afghanistan and Persia disguised as a Tartar horse dealer. At one stage, he pretended to be a holy man and got trapped in a religious debate. To convince a Baluchi village elder that you are a venerable Tartar Hadji when you speak with a thick Belfast accent requires a certain amount of self-confidence and perhaps a little bit of blarney.

Another great Irishman, Sir Richard Graves Macdonnell, ruled Hong Kong ‘with wholesome terror’. The historian Eitel, who knew him well, used a Shakespearean quotation when he commented on the departure of this dreaded autocrat: “Here goes a Caesar! When comes such an other?” The now thoroughly cowed citizens of Hong Kong welcomed, with immense relief, the fourth Irish governor of Hong Kong, the kindly old Sir Arthur Kennedy. Sir Arthur’s style of governing was to do as little as possible and to be nice to everybody. He thus established the popular ‘don’t rock the boat’ policy, which was the cornerstone of Hong Kong’s political philosophy until the arrival of Chris Patten, the last governor of the colony. Kennedy was the first governor to have had a statue erected in his honour.

Kennedy was the lull before the storm. In 1877, Sir John Pope Hennessy arrived. He was an unpredictable maverick who quarrelled with anybody and everybody. The army commander, General Donovan, yet another Irishman, so loathed the governor that he refused to provide a military band to play at Government House on the Queen's birthday.

It took all the experience and skill of the seventh Irish governor, Sir George Bowen, to restore harmony. Happily, Bowen was soon able to report to the prime minister, Lord Derby, that all was well. He added smugly that: “The ordinary work of a civil governor of Hong Kong... is not materially different from the ordinary work of the Mayor of Portsmouth.” When Bowen retired in 1885, Hong Kong had been governed by the Irish for 26 consecutive turbulent years. It was during this time that Hong Kong came of age.

While the Scots and the English were busy making money for themselves, it was the Irish civil servants who built the infrastructure that made this possible. The next Irish governor was Sir Henry Blake who took control of the New Territories. Unfortunately, he blemished his reputation when he looted the gates of Kam Tin to decorate his stately home in Ireland. The Hong Kong flower, Bauhinia Blakeana, a sterile hybrid, is named after this Irish vandal. Ironically, the flower that bears his name has been incorporated into the new flag of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and can be seen flying over Government House today.