Background photo: canva.com/FrankvandenBergh
Charles Cullen was born in Dungiven, Co. Derry, Ireland, on April 18, 1896 and died suddenly in China on July 23, 1923. His father, also Charles, from Ballyknockan, Co. Wicklow, taught in the Dungiven Boys' School from 1892. He married Mary Teresa O'Neill, a native of Co. Derry, on November 9, 1893, and they had two sons, James and Charles, before moving to Hilltown, Co. Down, in 1897. Ten more children were born there.
Young Charles studied in St Columb's College, Derry - where his mother's first cousin, Walter O'Neill, was Dean - and went to Ireland’s National Seminary, Maynooth, in 1914 for the Diocese of Derry. When Fr Edward Galvin, the co-founder of St Columbans Mission Society, arrived home from China in August 1916, the Irish bishops gave him permission to recruit missionaries for China.
Charles thought it his duty to go “where priests are most needed”, and when the Columban seminary, Dalgan Park, in Shrule, Co. Mayo opened on January 29, 1918, he was among the first group of nineteen students.
When David Lloyd George, the then British Prime Minister, decided to introduce conscription in Ireland, the Irish bishops, meeting in Maynooth on April 18, 1918, opposed it. They rushed the ordinations of all senior classes, including the Columbans and Charles became a sub-deacon on April 26, 1918, and a priest on June 9, 1921.
The first group of Columbans went to China in 1920. Fr Charles Cullen was in the second batch and he and ten others sailed from Cobh on September 8, 1921, on RMS Albania, arriving in Shanghai on December 13, 1921. The next morning, they were on the steamer Tuck Wu, on the Yangtze River reaching Hanyang on Saturday, December 17.
Charles described the Columban mission as being as big as the Province of Munster, with a population of five million, 14,000 of them Christian, and 26 priests. Travel was not easy. "Here if you cannot get a boat you have to walk, but luckily there are many waterways, and it is easy to get most of the way by boat. Yet these traveled often at a rate of a mile per hour so you can easily count on a week's journey up country."
The new arrivals settled into houses at Bai Yai Tai, together with four Christian Brothers, and began to study Chinese. In February, Charles left the comfort of Hanyang to travel to Ko Cha Dzae, where he joined Fr Richard Ranaghan from Killough, Co. Down. It was a district of 1,200 square miles "and scattered in clumps are some 1700 Christians, so you see there is a big area, and almost only one Christian to the square mile." The people lived in villages.
The church seated four hundred people and the priests' house had five rooms with a separate kitchen, and there were schools and a boarding house for twenty boys.
Straight away, Charles told his mother of some of the hazards: white ants that went for the woodwork, and malaria. He planted sunflowers in their little garden since they were supposed to prevent it. "Bandits struck in April, carrying off three Catholic children and holding them for ransom. On another night, he "stayed out until about 11.30 pm, armed with a revolver that was lent to us and a big electric torchlight."
His first task was to learn more Chinese as neither he nor Fr Ranaghan knew enough to hear confessions. Sick calls might involve a hike of 15 miles. The normal practice was to bring your bed and a Mass kit and stay overnight, but he preferred to return the same day.
In June 1922, he took the place of the priest in Tsan Dan Kow, which was surrounded by flooded rice fields and mosquitoes. He got malaria and was ordered down to Hanyang. “When I arrived, I looked pretty bad, but it wasn’t serious. Now, after about ten days, all traces of the illness have gone away.”
Towards the end of December, Fr Galvin sent him to Tai Lin Miao to relieve Fr John Dawson. He had an attack of dysentery and on Fr Dawson’s return he went to hospital in Hanyang.
In July 1923, Fr Ranaghan was in Hanyang and Charles was alone. He complained of pains in his head and stomach but continued his work. On Friday, July 13, he said Mass as usual but did not want to eat breakfast. At about 5.30 pm he was found dead.
Dr Patrick J. O’Donoghue thought the cause was heart failure due to acute gastroenteritis. The people in Ko Cha Dzae kept vigil over the body. One man, who was not a Christian, gave his own coffin for the burial. The funeral took place on Wednesday, July 18, 1923.
Mao Zedong proclaimed the founding of the Communist People’s Republic of China on October 1, 1949. Over the following years, many churches were destroyed, and the grave of Charles Cullen disappeared. Then in July 2012, Columban Fr Dan Troy, together with two Hanyang priests, Frs Joseph Li Changjie, and Zeng Xionghua found the village Ko Cha Dzae, now named Bai Guo Shu (White Fruit Tree). It’s a small village, with about fifty houses.
About 30 years ago a school was built there but is now disused. The locals told Fr Joseph that a church once stood on the property and that a priest had been buried just beside the south wall of the church. On May 9, 2013, a stone mason erected a plaque in memory of Fr Charles Cullen.
Columban Fr Neil Collins, the History Coordinator for St Columbans Mission Society, lives and works in Ireland.
Listen to "Reflection - Trailblazer in China"
Related links
- Read more from The Far East - May 2024
