Christianity in South Korea tends to wear a solemn face. It began with Roman Catholicism learnt from China, which led to savage persecutions and many martyrs, some now made saints. The Catholics were not daunted but tended to keep a low profile; there was not much talk of ecumenism at the end of the 19th century. In Korea, the dominant Christian ethos was Protestant, particularly Methodist and Presbyterian, and while individual missionaries might be fun-loving, merrymaking was confined to tea or coffee. The French Catholics no doubt had wine, and the tiny Anglican mission was not beyond dropping in on their next-door neighbours at the British Consulate General for a whisky or two; generally, however, the missionaries frowned on alcohol and smoking, an approach still followed by many Korean Christians today.

Then, 80 years ago, there arrived the Columban Fathers, an Irish missionary order with, if Kevin O’Rourke is to be believed, an approach to life that was much more in keeping with at least some of Korea's traditional approaches. And why would one not believe him, since he is himself a Columban Father, who has lived in Korea since 1964? He is more than just that. He is a poet in his own right and an accomplished translator of Korean verse, and he has now written this book. It is not easy to define. Partly, it is an anecdotal account of the Columban Fathers in Korea in war and peace, relayed with a storyteller's verve. In the 1930s, British officials in East Asia looked upon them as a threat to British security interests. Yet, on the ‘Death March’ to the Yalu River after capture by the North Koreans in 1950 at the start of the Korean War, it was Columban Bishop Thomas Quinlan who calmed a distressed George Blake (yes – that George Blake) by telling him that if he had ever had a son, he was the one he wanted. Most of the tales are of priests outwitting the bishop or curates outwitting the priests, and struggling with life in lonely remote parishes with barely adequate Korean. The mortification of learning that you had asked the congregation to come to Mass the following Sunday without their trousers, rather than without fail. The whisky may have helped.