Being an ordinary, informal person at heart, when David Andrews was in China last week he told his hosts one evening that he would like an ordinary, informal Chinese meal, not in the official government guesthouse, but somewhere ordinary and informal in Beijing.
So his Chinese hosts took him to dine at the China Club, which happens to be the poshest and most elite location north of Hong Kong (membership £15,000). It was opened in 1996 by millionaire entrepreneur David Tang at a jet-set bash attended by the Duchess of York.
In his speech to the Irish community in Hong Kong, Mr Andrews recalled the colonial governors of Irish origin such as Sir Henry Pottinger, Sir Hercules Robinson and Sir John Pope Hennessy. Curiously he did not mention one of the most colourful - gate-robber Sir Henry Black, who took office exactly 100 years ago. When enforcing the Queen's writ after Hong Kong took over the New Territories, Sir Henry blasted down the walls of a recalcitrant Tang village and took the valuable wrought iron gates to his estate, Myrtle Lodge in Youghal, Co Cork, where they filled a gap in the hedge. They were retrieved from his widow many years later.