Fr. Paddy Reilly was born in Drumraney, Co Westmeath on October 21st 1915.
He was educated in Drumraney N.S. 1920 – 1929, and in St Finian’s College, Mullingar 1929 – 1934.
He went to Dalgan in 1934 and was ordained on 21st December 1940.
In the Far East September 1956 Father Bernard Smyth wrote a lovely article about a memory he had of Father Paddy at that time:
“And, curiously enough, my most vivid memory of Fr Reilly goes back to that first year. We spent our Christmas holidays in the college and we were, I need hardly say, games crazy. We slept in two separate huts and during the holidays the two huts played each other in Gaelic, soccer, rugby and hurling. As far as I can remember nobody was killed – which is a bit difficult to understand when one recalls the rugby match. Only a few of us knew anything about rugby but we did have the general idea that when an opponent in possession was making for the line our job was to pull him down. This we did with a will, and we enjoyed doing it. At a critical stage in the game Paddy, as he then was, made for our line, but there were four or five of us to intercept him and the situation was safe. Or at least that was what we thought as we went on to attack. What happened during the next ten seconds or so is a bit of a blur, but finally Paddy crossed our line and touched down with an uncertain number of us clinging fiercely but unavailingly to such of his limbs as we could grasp. For he was a strong man, with a strength acquired on his father’s Westmeath farm, and he was never happier in College than when working with a horse and cart.
On December 21, 1940, twenty two students knelt around the high altar in Dalgan Park to receive the priesthood at the hands of the Most Rev. Dr. Browne, Bishop of Galway. Father Paddy Reilly was one of these young men. For seven years we had lived and studied, played and prayed together. That December morning was the climax of those years. It was also the beginning of the parting of the ways. And now, four of that group were dead and gone, and only one, Fr Bernard McCloskey, had died a natural death. Fr Paddy McMahon was killed as a chaplain in wartime France, Fr Frank Canavan died a prisoner in a Communist gaol in North Korea. And somewhere a mile down the road we were travelling Fr Paddy Reilly had taken his last sad look at life and had known that it was his last. It was the end of a journey that began on a September evening in 1934 when our class entered Dalgan.”
Unable to go to Korea because of World War II, he did pastoral work in the diocese of Clifton, England from 1940 – 1946. He was assigned as a curate in Tisbury and Salisbury, Wiltshire, England.
In 1947 Father Paddy was appointed to Korea to the new parish of Mukho a harbour town on the east coast of Kangwon-do. He bought a house and reconstructed it as a Church.
On June 27th 1950, two days after the outbreak of the Korean War, North Koreans invaded Mukho from the sea and troops landed about ten miles to the north. His congregation of twenty-five people fled and he was left alone with his cook. Having no parishioners to care for, he learned that there were Catholic refugees in Man Oo . Father Paddy decided to go there.
He lived in the house of Francis Nam for some time. On one occasion he said Mass, heard confessions and distributed Holy Communion publicly but as there were too many strangers about he did not do so again. Some days later the Communists found and captured him. Father Paddy said to them: “I have done nothing to harm you, nor has my country done anything against yours or any other Communist country Loosen those ropes! I will not flee. There is no place to which I can escape.” They untied him and brought him to Mukho station.
This is the house from which Father Paddy Reilly was captured. The house belonged to Francis Nam.
In the picture is Father Brian Oakley with Francis Nam’s daughter who was about 5 years of age when Father Reilly was killed on August 29th 1950. The Photo Album of the Columban Mission to Korea Volume 3 states: His body was found in January 1951, after the retreat of the Red Army. He was buried at Mukho Naval Base in Pal Han Ri by Colonel Baik Ki So, of the Korean Navy, and chaplain Alexander Lee. The following year he was re-interred behind the cathedral in Chun Chon.
Father Paddy was 35 years old
He was the third of the seven Columban Priests to be killed in Korea
FATHER REILLY’S LAST DAYS
An account of the finding of Father Reilly’s body in Korea and of the events that led up to his death. By Father Brian Geraghty
We have located Father Paddy Reilly’s grave. Here are the events that led up to his death, in so far as they are known.
Communist invasion
He was stationed in Mukho, thirty miles south of Kangnung, in the east of Korea. On Sunday, June 25th of last year, the Reds landed by sea to the north and the south of his parish. Father Paddy left his residence that day to join Father Maginn fifteen miles south in Sam-chok, but for some reason returned home when he had half the journey made. His town was occupied by Reds on June 28 or 29, and on that day he went to a catechist’s house about five miles north-west of the town. He remained with the catechist, Nam Francis, for twenty six days, and in that time the Red army moved very far south.
USUALLY the Reds in the rear of the army were much more severe on the people. It was their custom to set up local administrative centres, including police and propaganda agents, and very little escaped their eyes. Nam Francis, the catechist, was known to be a Catholic and was considered the one man who should be able to inform them of the whereabouts of Father Reilly and his property. The Reds had no idea that Father Reilly was living right in their midst, but they were anxious to get his clothes, supplies of food, and any weapons he might have had.
Taken prisoner
Nam Francis did admit that he had some things belonging to Father Reilly, as he thought that by doing so he might be the better able to save the priest’s life. He was told to take all he had along to Red headquarters, but he was not allowed to return to his home without a guard, and of course the guard saw the priest there. The house was searched, Father Pat beaten up a little, then roped and led to the police-station in Mukho. The catechist was also arrested and taken first to Mukho and later to Kangnung. He was finally released but he never saw Father Paddy again.
His body found
So much for Father Reilly’s arrest. We next hear that an old man gathering pine branches for fuel last year reported, in returning home, that there was a dead body up the mountain path which should be buried. Another old man, anxious to see if the body was within the village precincts and consequently the responsibility of the villagers, went up and satisfied himself on the point, with the result that a few younger men in the village carried out the burial. I have met the second man mentioned, and he tells me that he clearly recognized the dead man as a “foreigner,” with fair hair and very tall, and that he was perhaps two days dead at the time. But apart from knowing that it was the seventh lunar month, the old man could give me no idea of the date.
A young Korean navy officer, a Catholic, came to Mukho last December and ever since has been trying to glean all the news he could of Father Reilly. From all the reports, he gathered that he must have been killed in a certain locality, which helped him considerably by narrowing down the enquiry. While people here are very slow to answer such questions in detail, he was enabled eventually to meet the old man referred to, who had seen to the burial, and who now led him to the grave. The officer questioned the old man concerning the clothes, height, colour of hair and other details of the dead man, and then questioned Nam Francis to see if the old man’s answers tallied with the catechist’s memory of Father Reilly when he had last seen him. Afterwards the officer opened the grave and had the remains removed and buried in Mukho. He would have preferred to have some or all of us priests present for the exhumation and re-burial, but as the Reds were again only a few miles from Kangnung he thought it better not to delay. He did send a letter and last week I drove to Mukho and once again opened the grave. While very little but the bones remain, I was able to recognise the dental formation as Father Pat’s; he had long and somewhat irregular teeth. I have no doubt about the remains and I left him there to rest along-side the place where he was to have built a church last September.
A possible explanation
My opinion is that he was being walked from Mukho to Kangnung, and that after he had completed ten or twelve miles he became weak and his guard shot him. That was their way of dealing with any prisoner who could not continue on a journey. He was shot in the chest; and just as his short life here in Korea was spent doing his work very quietly, so also in death no one but his executioner and God knew about it. As I placed his bones to rest once more I offered a little prayer to him to comfort his family at home, to bless the parish and people for whom he gave his life, and to help the Society that had called him to the priesthood. Pagans and Catholics joined in doing their very best to give him a decent burial, and I think the Navy officer deserves a special word of thanks.
I visited Kangnung and Samchok also but so far I have been able to gather no reliable information about Father Maginn. I still have hope that some-day we shall learn all, but at the moment people are very much afraid to speak of such matters. We have true information now on the fate of Father Collier and Father Reilly, and we may yet hope for correct news of the fate of our other missing men.
On October 11 1951 the remains of Father Tony Collier and Father Paddy Reilly are carried in procession to the bombed Cathedral in Chunchon, where Requiem Mass was celebrated.
Father Geraghty celebrates Requiem Mass for Fathers Tony Collier and Paddy Reilly at the altar set in the doorway of the ruined Cathedral.