My Korea - Kevin O'Rourke

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      the guts, the endurance, the faith.

      The French lack substance to me,

      but these men are real; many of them I knew,

      and those I didn’t are mythically mine,

      warp and woof of the Columban thing

      with which I identify.

      I marvel at these earthen vessels:

      lovely, misshapen, bulgy presences,

      each a unique firing in the master kiln.

      Moulded from the first earth,

      they stand in stark contrast

      to our peas in a pod times.

      Theirs was a harsh theology:

      the flesh the enemy, the battle bitter.

      Yet the harshness of the moral view

      was tempered by a humanity that shone

      like the finest glaze, warm, familiar, true.

      Selfless, crucified men,

      they were their own Heaven and Hell:

      only the innocent could be so.

      Monsignor McPolin, a tall, thinking, iron man, was first ruler of the roost in 1933. He taught patrology in Dalgan Park, the Columban seminary in Ireland, when I was a student. Bishop Quinlan, old tyrant, leader of the Columban advance from Chŏlla to the northern province of Kangwŏn, was wise as an owl; he was loved, feared, and admired. His priests entertained him with salmon-trout, bananas, marmalade and bus loads of flattery and fuss; I always thought a tumbler of whiskey would have done as much. Harold Henry was the flamboyant bishop of Kwangju, the southern diocese, which was the first Columban territory in Korea. He was known in Dalgan Park as the Lucky Strike bishop because he invariably had a pack in his top pocket. Not the greatest of card players, his favourite gambit was to jump to three-no-trumps, which said much about his style and personality. Brian Geraghty, a Galway man, big in heart and deed, felt that salvation would be inevitable if he got the people to sit on seats rather than on the floor. P. Dawson, with his Sŏ Chŏngju style corncrake voice and infectious laugh, was a snooker player of real quality. He was famous for shouting sandpaper defiance at his Japanese jailors: he’d wash in no Jap water, he cried.

      Pat was sentenced to five years imprisonment for spying and saying inappropriate things about the emperor. Of the second charge he was undoubtedly guilty. When he got to jail, he was asked ‘Are you a bishop?’ The query sought the reason for his five-year sentence whereas his two companions, T.D. Ryan and Jerome Sweeney, got three. The simple answer was that Pat’s offensive remarks about the emperor probably rated a fifteen year sentence! Within the prison he wasn’t any different. Assigned to clean the latrines, he always did the chore to the tune of the Japanese national anthem! Pat Dawson’s real claim to fame was that he put innumerable Korean kids through school. I remember walking with him in Myŏngdong the last time he came back before he died – he was in his eighties. It took two hours to walk from the Midopa Department Store to Myŏngdong Cathedral. People ran out of every alley, fell to their knees and cried ‘Shinbunim! Shinbunim! (Father, Father!)’ tears gushing from their eyes. Daw, as we called him affectionately, was enormously embarrassed. I was humbled. I knew I was looking at a great missionary who would only be remembered by the people he had helped. Daw spoke panmal, low form, children’s language. Cardinal Kim had a story about Bishop Quinlan telling a minister of state that he’d be talking panmal because that was all he knew and for the minister not to take offence but to talk panmal in return. I never knew Bishop Quinlan use panmal to adults. I think the cardinal was mixing him up with someone else. It could have been any one of half a dozen others. Our collective language skills were not great. In a famous speech, one of our more colourful parish priests lumped together the governor of the province, the city mayor and the county chief under the generous heading of yŏrŏgaji yangban (assorted gentry)! T.D. Ryan, a laughing Buddha priest, was skilled in all the wily ways. He was noted for keeping a special section in his notebook titled ‘Words not to be remembered.’

      Next, the martyrs, a special group, I know them only by repute: Tony Collier shielded his catechist from a bullet in Ch’unch’ŏn. Tony died but the catechist lived. Paddy Reilly, betrayed by his hairy arms, was shot to keep an accountant’s books straight – there weren’t supposed to be any foreigners north of Mukho, a town on the East Coast. The communists made sure Paddy didn’t disturb the bookkeeping. Jim Maginn sent a boy to get a battery for his Zenith radio in Samch’ŏk and was apprehended as a result. Frank Canavan, of Death March fame, died just before he was due to be freed. He had his final wish: Christmas dinner in heaven. Monsignor Brennan, Tom Cusack, and Jack O’Brien, were part of the holocaust inventory in Taejŏn; their remains were never found.

      Bishop Quinlan, Phil Crosbie and Frank Canavan were the three Columbans on the Death March. Phil Crosbie tells the story in Three Winters Cold, and it is a gripping read. It was translated into Korean in 2004. Philip Deane, a journalist, who also experienced the Death March tells his story in I Was a Captive (1953). Deane gave a talk in Dalgan Park some years ago. He told of a day in North Korea when George Blake, the famous (or infamous) triple agent (British, Russian, and Israeli) came in from the yard where a North Korean captain had just shot an ailing American soldier. Blake, who was reputedly a good linguist, began to curse in a dozen languages. He cursed God, the world, the war, the cruelty of men. Bishop Quinlan put his arms around him and said gently, ‘That’s enough, that’s enough, George! If I had had a son, I’d have wanted you to be him.’ Then he turned to Philip Deane and said, ‘Sorry, Philip, you’d have had to be content to be number two.’ It’s a Zen moment in the history of the Columbans, pure poetry.

      There were so many characters: Pat Deery, who built the cathedral in Wŏnju, renowned for imprecating his love of the bishop; Frank Woods, a hugely popular foxhole chaplain and hunter supreme; anyone fool enough to shoot the lead goose – and there often was one – risked the scorn of this intrepid priest.

      Tom Kane, a noted wit and contributor to the word hoard, coined many of the popular Konglish expressions in use among us; the roll of the tongue, he said, controlled the dice of language.

      And finally, a vessel from a later firing, the most cultivated man of all, Dick Delaney.

      He was a saint; a brilliant man

      buried in the back of beyond.

      He had no attachment to material things.

      He loved his general factotum,

      he loved Jesus and he loved a shot.

      His only other concession to this world

      was his insistence on a cigar

      to ease his morning business out.

      Dick was one of the best read men I’ve ever known. He spent his life in a mouldy Cleary’s suit, puffing the odd cigar, deep in his beloved books. A Korean priest once said, ‘There was only one priest ever in P’ungsuwŏn.’ It was a magnificent tribute, one I never heard given to another missionary, especially since the parish was one of the oldest in the country and had produced more priests than any other parish. Dick was dearly loved. The fact that he only had fifty Korean words in his vocabulary was irrelevant. He radiated the light of heaven wherever he went and everyone felt its warmth. He is clearly out of season in this company because he came later in life after a career as a professor in Dalgan. The men who knew him there said he was a boring prof, but when he talked about a book he liked over a few whiskies, he was wonderful. On reflection, it was only when Dick came on a visit to Sŏngshim College in Ch’unch’ŏn that he had an audience for his inner world. I include him because he epitomized what was best in the earlier giants. More than once he lost his month’s maintenance in a poker game and smiled.

      Spring scents fade:

      the glory

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