I am an editorial writer at The Korea Times, focusing on foreign policy, North Korea and domestic politics. My key areas of interest include North Korea, foreign interference in elections, election integrity, cyberattacks and human rights. Prior to joining the Editorial Board, I served as both Politics Desk editor and Culture Desk editor. During my career, I have reported on the Presidential Office under the Lee Myung-bak administration, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the National Assembly.
Irish priest helps islanders get out of poverty through farming
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Rev. Patrick James McGlinchey / Photo by June Choi
By Kang Hyun-kyung
By Kang Hyun-kyung
JEJU ISLAND — Like many other Western missionaries before him, Irish priest Patrick James McGlinchey, 86, came to the southern island of Jeju in April 1954, merely months after the end of the Korean War, to spread the word of God.
It didn’t take long for him to realize that he had to do much more than preaching because farmers there were struggling to make ends meet. Thus, over the past six decades, he has established farms for pigs, cattle, sheep and racehorses to teach farmers advanced farming skills and enable them to earn cash, pay off their debts and send their children to school. Some of those farms have closed as the business environment worsened.
With the income from those farms, McGlinchey established several institutions, such as a nursing home, a clinic and a kindergarten, inside the compound of a 160,500-square-meter farm stretched over the hilly side of the Hallim area, to give further assistance to the poor.
Rev. Michael Riordan, right, chairman of the Isidore Development Association, speaks to Lim Geon-taek, planning director of the association, at its farm in Hallim on Jeju Island on Nov. 18. / Koreaa Times
Rev. Michael Riordan, chairman of the Isidore Development Association, said McGlinchey leads by practicing what he preaches.
“He said there would be no point in preaching the word of the Lord without practicing it. He felt the best way to do this was to help people retain their dignity,” he told The Korea Times in an interview on Nov. 18 at the Isidore Farm, an umbrella name for all those farms. Riordan, also an Irish priest, has known McGlinchey since 1978 when he first came to the farm as a volunteer.
Since he succeeded McGlinchey as chairman of the association in 2011, Riordan met with his predecessor almost every day to keep him updated about what’s going on in the farm. Although McGlinchey didn’t interfere with Riordan’s management of the farm, Riordan said the founder deserved a briefing because the farm is his baby.
When McGlinchey first arrived on Jeju Island, the people there didn’t have any hope. Many farmers were unable to make ends meet, prompting young people to leave the island for sweatshop jobs in cities, such as the southeastern port city of Busan. The defeatism among the people was a formidable foe that put the priest to the test. The farmers, particularly the older ones, were hesitant to try new farming methods.
In this undated photo, Rev. Patrick James McGlinchey, center, poses with two Americans in Houston, Texas during the Irish priest’s fundraising tour to the United States. / Courtesy of Isidore Development Association
“P.J. made many mistakes. Some of the businesses he made were wrong,” Riordan said, referring to McGlinchey by his initials.
“But he has never been afraid of making mistakes. If you are afraid of making mistakes, you will never do anything. If you make a lot of mistakes, you can learn from them and get things right.”
After discovering Jeju’s potential, McGlinchey decided to rebuild the people’s optimism. The natural setting of the island was suitable for raising cattle. McGlinchey had some knowledge of the cattle industry because his father was a veterinarian and he was able to observe how Irish farmers earned a living from raising cattle.
The farmers on Jeju Island were diligent and were experts at growing vegetables. McGlinchey realized, however, that they knew nothing about raising farm animals. For example, pigs ate human excrement while confined within the boundaries of traditional toilets.
He tried to help the old farmers change their ways, but they never listened. The Irish priest then shifted his focus to the young farmers, teaching them advanced farming skills. He established a pig farm and demonstrated to them the proper way to raise pigs.
He took a Yorkshire pig to the farm, and a year later, the pig gave birth to 10 piglets. McGlinchey gave one piglet each to 10 young farmers on two conditions: the piglets were not to be raised in toilets and each farmer had to give the priest two piglets born from the first.
This ambitious project, however, also failed. Hungry, the farmers’ families couldn’t wait until the piglets were fully grown and slaughtered them for their food. The young farmers couldn’t do anything because their Confucian culture discouraged them from challenging their elders.
“The young people learned how to raise pigs, but they couldn’t decide. The old people did that,” Riordan said.
Frustrated, McGlinchey retrieved all the remaining pigs and raised them in the farm that he established in the hilly area of Hallim.
The pig farm operated smoothly until the late 1970s, when pork prices fell drastically. In the face of a rising demand for pork, the government decided to import it from Taiwan in 1978. This caused an oversupply of pork, which, in turn, caused a significant decrease in pork prices. In 1978, the price of a 90-kilogram pig was 99,000 won ($90). The price fell to only 30,000 won the next year.
McGlinchey decided to close the pig farm and gave the pigs away to the farmers in the Hallim area. Ironically, the decision helped the cattle industry there to flourish. One of the farmers who received 300 pigs from Isidore Farm in 1980 now raises 4,500 pigs in his farm. The Hallim area now accounts for nearly 70 percent of the cattle production on Jeju Island.
McGlinchey tirelessly explored new business areas, including raising sheep and beef cattle and making organic milk and cheese, to finance the rising demand for social services from the poor. He used the income from these new businesses to expand the farm and help the underprivileged.
McGlinchey also launched a weaving project after learning the tragic death of a teenage girl, who was identified only by her first name, Soon-im. She left home for a sweatshop job in Busan, where she died of unknown causes. Her body was cremated and sent home to Jeju. The incident motivated the priest to find ways to create jobs for young people so they wouldn’t have to leave the island. At its peak, the Isidore weaving project created 1,300 jobs for the local women. Isidore’s woven products were a big hit at that time.
McGlinchey invited several Irish nuns with expertise in weaving to spearhead the project. Sister Rosary, who died only two weeks ago, managed the project. “Father McGlinchey helped her set it up. She employed a number of people in the factory to produce those products and also devised tools to help people do knitting at home. We had full-time employees and also workers at home,” Riordan said.
According to him, the women who participated in the project were able to afford to send their children to school.
“He was very much against giving out free clothes, free foods and free help. His idea was that if people are starving, you have to feed them. But if you keep feeding them, they become dependent on the person who is feeding them.”
Riordan said Isidore Farm was able to become what it is today thanks to the founder’s faith.
“Guided by his faith, he believed it was good to feed hungry people but it wasn’t good to just keep feeding them. You can help people in dire straits for a period of time, but at some point, they have to become independent in order to retain their dignity,” he said.
“I often tell P.J. that if this entire place collapses tomorrow, it would be fine because the place did a lot of great work over the last 60 years.”