Category: Ita’s World

‘There lies a sleeping giant. Let him sleep! For when he wakes he will move the world’, attributed to Napoleon about China. Chinese civilization stretches back until at least the third millennium BC, the country being ruled by a series of dynasties until the Qing, or Manchu, dynasty was overthrown in 1911. China was proclaimed a republic the following year. After the Second World War the Kuomintang government of Chiang Kai-shek was overthrown by the communists under Mao Zedong,…

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In 2010 An Post issued two new 82c stamps which honour two Chilean patriots with Irish connections. Bernardo O’Higgins and Juan MacKenna fought on the rebel side of Chile’s War of Independence which marks its bicentenary in 2010. The stamps feature paintings of the men in full military uniform who are well documented in historical biography and bibliography. The two men were friends and it was a descendant of Juan MacKenna, former ambassador to Ireland, Cecilia MacKenna who worked…

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