Frank McCourt dies aged 78
The death has taken place of author Frank McCourt, after a two week long battle with meningitis.
Frank McCourt was born t on the 19th August 1930, in Brooklyn, New York to Angela and Malachy McCourt. The eldest of seven children, four of whom died in childhood his early years were at the height of the great depression of the 1930s.
Unable to find work in the US, his family moved back to Ireland, ending up in Limerick City in 1934. He received a primary education at Leamy’s School. His time in Limerick was chronicled in his autobiography “Angela’s Ashes,” which gave an account of a life of religious repression, illness, and destitution. In his teenage years, McCourt worked as a telegram deliverer, and did a spot of moonlighting as a letter writer for a local loanshark.
During his time in Limerick, his father, Malachy, turned to alcoholism, and could rarely hold down a job. He eventually went to the United Kingdom to seek employment, but only sent money back to his family on rare occasions.
He returned to the United States in 1949, and worked for a time in a New York hotel before being drafted into the army. During his military career, he was stationed in Germany.
After his discharge, he took up a series of jobs before taking advantage of the US GI Bill, an initiative introduced by the US Government to assist former soldiers in gaining further education, to train, and later become a teacher.
He received his Masters Degree from Brooklyn College in 1967 He worked as a high school teacher for 30 years after receiving his masters.
It was in 1996 that he came to prominence as a writer after his book “Angela’s Ashes” sold over a million copies. The book earned McCourt a pulitzer prize in 1997. He was conferred with an honorary degree at the University of Limerick the following year.
Whilst Angela’s Ashes was hailed as a literary masterpiece in the United States, it came in for strong criticism from prominent people in Limerick, mostnotably broadcaster and author Gerard Hannan, and actor Richard Harris.
McCourt used his critics to his advantage however, suggesting to media outlets that they speak to Hannan in the run up to the launch of the film adaptation of Angelas Ashes in 2000.
Amongst the accusations levelled at McCourt by Hannan, was that he scandalised the family of a teenage girl named Tereasa Carmody, who McCourt claimed to have had sex with just days before she died of Tuberculosis. McCourt maintained however that it was a ficticious name. However, Hannan maintained that this was untrue as her mother is also named. A claim in Angelas Ashes against a man named Willie Harold, was conceeded to be untrue when Mr. Harold himself confronted McCourt at a book signing. In the book, McCourt claimed that Harold confessed to spying on his naked sister, even though Harold did not even have a sister.
The row between Hannan and McCourt came to a head on a live broadcast of RTE’s The Late Late Show in 1999. Watch the video here
Despite their disagreements, Hannan described both himself and McCourt as “kindred spirits” in a Sunday Tribune interview in 2000.
It was around this time when McCourt released his second book, “Tis” which chronicled his life from the time he left Limerick, to when he became a teacher in New York.
Hi third book, “Teacher Man” further chronicles his teaching career, and described his methods for getting students to take responsibility for their own learning.
In 2007, McCourt took a change in direction and wrote a book for children, Angela and the Baby Jesus. The book, based on a story told to him of his mother, was set in 1912 Limerick when she took a model of the Baby Jesus from a church crib and took it home because she thought it was cold.
In 2008, it was revealed that McCourt had been diagnosed with skin cancer, which he had been fighting for over a year.
Two weeks ago, he contracted meningitis, and his health deteriorated rapidly. He died this evening in New York.
News of his death emerged on the Twitter website from Iranian author Julie Klam.
Frank McCourt is survived his wife Ellen, one daughter, one granddaughter and two grandsons,