Frank McCourt

Francis McCourt (August 19, 1930 – July 19, 2009) was an Irish-American teacher and writer. He won a Pulitzer Prize for his book Angela's Ashes, a tragicomic memoir of the misery and squalor of his childhood.

Early life and education

Frank McCourt was born in New York City's Brooklyn borough, on August 19, 1930, the eldest child of Irish Catholic immigrants Malachy Gerald McCourt, Sr. (October 11, 1899  – January 11, 1985), of Toome, County Antrim, Northern Ireland, who was aligned with the IRA during the Irish War of Independence, and Angela Sheehan (January 1, 1908 – December 27, 1981) from Limerick. Frank McCourt lived in New York with his parents and four younger siblings: Malachy Jr. (1931–2024); twins Oliver and Eugene, born in 1932; and a younger sister, Margaret, who died just 21 days after birth, on March 5, 1934.

In fall of 1934 in the midst of the Great Depression, the family moved back to Ireland. Frank was 4 years old. His brother Malachy was 3 and the twins were 2 years old. Unable to find steady work in Belfast or Dublin and beset by Malachy Senior's alcoholism, the McCourt family returned to their mother's native Limerick, where they sank even deeper into poverty. They lived in a slum, the parents and children sharing one bed together, McCourt's father drinking away what little money they had. His father, being from the north and bearing a northern accent, found this trait to be an added stressor to finding a job. The twins Oliver and Eugene died in early childhood in consequence of the squalor of their circumstances, and two more boys were born: Michael John, who later lived in San Francisco (where he was called the "Dean of Bartenders") until his death in September 2015; and Alphonsus, who published a memoir of his own and died in 2016. Frank McCourt himself nearly died of typhoid fever when he was 11.