Isidore The miracle of Jeju, Korea

chapter 001
It was not I but us that accomplished it
chapter 002
Who really lead the way??
chapter 003
What did he accomplish??
chapter 004
The Essence of the McGlinchey Mode?
chapter 005
What still remains of Isidore today
chapter 006
What people thought about Fr. McGlinchey?

Foreword

As I wrote this book I felt once again the difficulty in writing. As Isidore is a great success story in local development I was determined at all times to write this book from that perspective. I have concentrated on the method used and the goals promoted in developing Isidore. I have also tried to evaluate its results. But as I am a representative of the Fr. McGlinchey appreciation committee I have another reason for worrying. I cannot ignore the fact that central to the work of that committee is writing the biography of Fr. McGlinchey. I prepared for the task by reading religious biographies.

I read Lee Chang-yeol’s recently published “Ah, Cardinal Kim Soo-whan” from cover to cover a couple of times. The more I read it the less confident I felt about writing about a religious person. I did not find it easy to decide to write this book even though I had many conversations with Fr. McGlinchey and had written the stories of many of the people who lived in the area with him. While I am a Catholic I am a neophyte when it comes to the study of the bible. I have never had the experience of living close to Fr. McGlinchey. When I read Park Chaehyung’s “Fr. McGlinchey, the pastor who gave hope” I realized that I lack the ability to find the appropriate words in writing a biography and do not have the skills he had. I therefore concluded that I had to work hard and put all my energy into this special task.

I decided to write about Fr. McGlincheys goals and the methods he used in the process of creating Isidore as well as why he created it. Looked at from the point of view of a regional development project the progression and results are truly surprising. It is no exaggeration to state that it is deserving of being entered for a Nobel Prize. Many volunteers and missionaries go to underdeveloped countries and become immersed in regional development today.

But these developments receive financial assistance from foundations or the state and most of them have only short term goals like solving people’s food, clothes and housing problems. It is very difficult to find successful projects like Isidore that never received government assistance but worked well with foreign assistance agencies and had the local people participating as the leaders. The development of Isidore is probably unique in that the profit from the regional development went to the local people with the remainder used for community welfare projects and educational purposes.

We can confidently say that Fr. McGlinchey was the one who made this a successful venture. His self sacrifice, his loving heart and his steadfast faith were the principal reasons for the success of this regional development. It would not be overstating the mark to say that the real heroes in making Isidore what it is today were the young boys and girls, who given their ages should be enjoying life playing games, the original believers that followed him as well as those who shed sweat and tears as they reclaimed land dreaming of becoming land owners and the hard working local people.

There are numerous other heroes and heroines that were on a different stage. I am not exaggerating when I say that the religious sisters who overcame the most difficult conditions with love and devotion are today the pillars supporting Isidore. Starting from the Hallim knitwear and Isidore hospital and extending to what is today another significant part of Isidore the welfare facilities that the sisters devote themselves to operating.

We cannot even imagine a successful Isidore if it were not for those who sheared the sheep, kept the accounts and conducted the education classes and the many volunteers who unconditionally devoted their time and talents. Then we have the staff that faithfully did their work even though they had to deal with poor transport. They were prepared to work hard while receiving wages much lower than their counterparts.

Articles written about Isidore development up until now have focused on Fr. McGlinchey alone. I want to simultaneously put the spotlight on the hero on the stage as well as the ones toiling quietly behind the stage. Jeju possesses the least human and material resources of all Korea. Neither does it have accumulated assets. The general regional development that took place in Jeju was already replicated on the mainland. However the development that took place in Isidore is special as it taught people from outside the island and even university professors the way to breed animals.

It also revolutionized social welfare and has become a manual for others to learn from. As well as showing the way in animal breeding Isidore produced some of the finest products in all of Korea starting with the production of unique clothes at Hallim knitwear factory. The Jeju citizens grew in self confidence and began to realize their inner strength as they developed their own region. The Isidore development project showed that people working in unison can achieve great results while protecting the environment.

I believe that Isidore is a model of development not only for our country but for developing countries throughout the world. To better understand the process I used in writing this book I need to alert you to the following facts.

1] I started to write this book after I had already written a book entitled “Fr. McGlinchey’s love of Jeju and its fruits” which was published in 2013. It was a pamphlet written to publicize the Fr. McGlinchey’s appreciation committee’s work. The other source that I used was the series entitled “Fr. McGlinchey the pioneer of modernization”. It was published in the Jeju internet newspaper from October of 2013 until January of 2015. You will find that some of the material in this book overlaps with those two sources that I used.

2] In this book I quote from many referenced documents but also from the many interviews I conducted with several people. More than ten people have written their doctoral thesis on Fr. McGlinchey and Isidore. There are countless numbers of interviews conducted by television companies, newspapers and magazines. As well as that there are many lectures that were given on the subject of Isidore and Fr. McGlinchey. It is often difficult to decide who first wrote the material. I have tried to write footnotes stating my sources but found that I was not always able to do that. I found it very difficult to procure material on the state of the Isidore Development Association. I could only get statistics for the years 1977, 1979, 2002, 2005 2011 and 2013.

3] I personally conducted most of the interviews. However I have used material from interviews conducted by others. I have also used material that I got from reported speeches, books and documents about Fr. McGlinchey and Isidore. As many people conducted interviews I found that I could not always state when the interviews took place.

4] Nearly all the photographs in this book were supplied by the Isidore Development Association but I took some also. While there were simply thousands of photos taken by the Association the theme or subject was not recorded. Perhaps some of the photos I have included do not match the reality and I take responsibility for that. I omitted numbering the photos for readability purposes.

5] This book is not written for any group or organization. It is simply the result of me having collected material over a long period for the purpose of writing about regional development. I am publishing it now at the request of the Fr. McGlinchey appreciation committee. A number of people have written words of congratulations recommending the book. They include the chairman of the appreciation committee, the bishop of Jeju, the governor of Jeju and the director of the Isidore Development Association.

All profit from the sale of this book I donate to the Appreciation Association and will be used to support the hospice. I have written about Isidore since its foundation some sixty years ago. There could be lots more said about it as it has gotten little or no publicity over the years. It has taken me a long time to complete this work and it is based a lot on the memory of those who lived and worked with Fr. McGlinchey. I suspect that there are many errors in the book as people cannot always accurately recall incidents from the past. I take full responsibility for all that I have written.