Foreign and Chinese staff pose for the opening of Yochow (today's Yueyang, Hunan province) customs office. [Photo/SPECIAL COLLECTIONS & ARCHIVES, QUEEN'S UNIVERSITY BELFAST]

"Just cross Chang'anjie (Chang'an Avenue) from Beijing Hotel, walk about 30 meters and turn left－that's the street where Hart lived," says O'Neill to a room full of listeners, both Chinese and expats.

"There is a plaque which says in Chinese that Hart lived here, adds O'Neill.

"This plaque survived the Japanese occupation, the Chinese civil war, the 'cultural revolution' (1966-76) and everything. It's still there."

"In the history of China, there has never been a foreigner like Sir Robert Hart. Nor will there ever be in the future," he adds.

Hart was born in a Christian family in Portadown, a small town in what is now Northern Ireland, in 1835, and went to Queen's University in Belfast at the age of 15.