Jim Maginn was the second of four sons of James and Annie Maginn, who owned the Montana Hotel on Main Street, Newcastle, Co Down (where Neesons now stands). He was born in Granite Street, Butte, Montana on November 15th 1911, but his family came home to Newcastle in 1920.

He was educated in St Mary’s Primary School and St Malachy’s College, Belfast. He went to Dalgan in 1929 and was ordained on December 21st 1935.
Father Jim was assigned to Korea in 1936 and ministered in the Shunsen (now called Chunchon) Prefecture .

During World War 11 Father Maginn was arrested together with twenty three other Columban Missionaries in Korea.

He spent a fortnight in gaol in December 1941, followed by three months imprisonment and was under house arrest for the remaining period of the war in his own mission residence.

His one and only visit home was in 1946. His mother had died three years before.

When the war broke out Father Maginn’s hundred parishioners pleaded with him to flee but, as many of them later testified, he refused saying, “As pastor I am staying here in the church”. He divided up all the money he had and gave it to the people who were fleeing.

FATHER MAGINN’S ARREST AND DEATH
Father James Maginn, who has been missing in Korea since June 1950, is now known to have been killed on the 4th of July of that year.

Father Maginn was pastor of Samchok, on the east coast of Korea, some 50 miles south of the political boundary between North and South Korea, the 38th Parallel. He was in his parish when the North Korean Communist forces invaded the territory in June 1950, but when the Reds were driven back in the autumn of that year and our priests were able to return to the district, there was no trace of him and no information of what happened to him.
Quite recently, however, Father Brian Geraghty, Maynooth Mission Superior in Korea, received information from a Korean which told of Father Maginn’s death and the location of his grave.

In the week between the outbreak of the war and the occupation of his parish, he had been urged by his people to leave the town before the Communists came. He advised them to go and some did. Father Jim gave them money to help them survive, but he chose to stay, saying, “I shall remain here and defend the Church until death. I shall bear witness to God to the Communists who deny Jesus Christ.”

A teacher in the High School, John Kim Soo Sung, was very devoted to Father Jim, who had baptised him earlier, and he declared that he could not leave, knowing that Father Jim was willing to face death at the hands of the Communists, so he also vowed to stay.

It is known that Father Jim offered Mass on the morning of July 2nd, the day in which the Reds invaded the village. Two days later, informed on by the local Communists, they came to arrest the priest. As John Kim recalled, “Father Jim received them with calmness and composure.” Entering the church, he knelt before the altar for a short final prayer. The impatient soldiers shouted to him from outside the church. When he emerged, they seized and kicked him, struck him with their rifle butts and were about to handcuff him. With a calm smile, he said, “Make yourselves at ease, I’m not escaping. Let’s go this way.” Overcome by his self-possession, they yielded to his request. He was escorted to the station at gunpoint. A few hours later, John Kim was arrested and detained in an adjacent cell. They questioned Father Jim for two days. Because he had been born in America, they wanted him to confess that he was an American spy.

John Kim got out of gaol when the Reds pulled back in October and he was able to give a detailed account of Father Jim’s last days.

After a period of detention, starvation and torture Father Jim was lying almost unconscious on the floor at midnight when a warder came and shouted at him to get up and come out of his cell. Father Jim had already guessed the reason. He asked them to let him say a word of farewell to John Kim who was still in the adjacent cell. The warders could not refuse the last request of a man about to die. Passing his fingers through John Kim’s hair, he gave him his final blessing, saying, “John, I hope to see you in Paradise. Whatever pain you have to suffer, bear it patiently and never lose your faith in Our Lord Jesus Christ.” He disappeared into the pitch-black night and John Kim’s mourning wails followed him and continued long after he had gone. Father Maginn was hustled barefooted along the rugged mountain road as far as Cha-chi-ri. A shot echoed through the ravine and he fell. Next morning the corpse was found by villagers who charitably buried it at the very spot.

FAR EAST JUNE 1952

Father Jim was 38. He was the 2nd of the seven Columban Priests to die.

It was not until March 1952 after the liberation of Chunchon city that his grave and body were located by Fr Brian Geraghty, on the information of eye-witnesses of his last hours. His body was exhumed and laid to rest on 26th March 1952 beside Fathers Collier and Reilly in the church-yard of Jungnim- dong, now the Cathedral Church of Chunchon Diocese in South Korea.