On the 20th of September, 1931, Malachy McCourt was born and lived until the 11th of March, 2024. McCourt, having grown up amid the gloom of an Irish childhood, left for America and crafted a multifaceted career as an actor, bar owner and highly acclaimed memoirist. He breathed his last in New York City, aged 92.
He spoke to The New York Times a year prior to his death, revealing his struggle with a heart illness, multiple cancers, and muscular deterioration. McCourt, originally from Brooklyn, returned to New York in 1952, aged 20. He sailed from Ireland with the voyage fare acquired through $200 his elder brother, Frank McCourt, had saved and sent to him. Frank had already relocated to America and was educating pupils in English at a public school. Frank, too, embraced a writing career later in life, penning award-winning pieces, one of which was the autobiography ‘Angela’s Ashes’ that fetched him a Pulitzer Prize.
Malachy McCourt bid adieu to his education at 13 while in Limerick, a couple of years after his alcoholic father abandoned his family. His mother Angela, thus, had the responsibility of single-handedly raising four of their seven once-living children. McCourt accounted this experience in his writings, describing his family as “destitute beyond mere poverty”.
In an interview with The New York Times in 1998, McCourt reflected on his challenging past, describing how shame and fear had influenced his life. He mentioned that the shame of originating from a poor background and the fear of failing in achieving his ambitions ultimately hampered him from appreciating the present. He concluded his journey with alcohol and smoking in the mid-1980s.
Courted by his impressive red beard and robust build, McCourt became a familiar face on TV soaps, notably as a bartender on ‘Ryan’s Hope’. He also had minor roles in multiple films. In the 1950s, he established Manhattan’s first lounge for singles named ‘Malachy’s’, located on the Upper East Side.
Despite his eccentricities, his top-selling ‘A Monk Swimming’ from 1998 (the title mirrors the author’s nostalgic misinterpretation of Hail Mary’s “Blessed art thou amongst women”) and ‘Singing My Him Song’ (2000) drew unavoidable associations with his brother’s autobiographical work.
“I was criticised for not mirroring my brother,” he confessed sorrowfully, interspersing it with a cunning remark, “I make a promise to all those detractors that I will author ‘Angela’s Ashes’ someday and adopt the moniker Frank McCourt.”
When Christopher Lehmann-Haupt critiqued ‘A Monk Swimming’ in The New York Times, he noted, “Frank has a sombre, disciplined quality, while Malachy exudes a bold, humorous vibe”. This contrast primarily arises from the fact that the younger McCourt concentrates more on his whisky-driven, flamboyant escapades, feigning contentment in America, as opposed to the torment he abandoned in Ireland.
[ A Monk Swimming: A further revival from the ruins ]
“The contemporary trend is the broken family,” stated Malachy McCourt in The New York Times in 1988. “Well, I’ve yet to encounter a fully functioning one. In Limerick, a dysfunctional family was one that had the means to drink but refrained.”
Malachy Gerard McCourt was born on 20th September 1931, in Brooklyn. His father, also named Malachy, escaped to New York from British forces as an IRA operative. His father met his mother, Angela Sheehan, post-release from imprisonment on charges of truck hijack.
The McCourts migrated back to Ireland in search of employment amidst the Depression following their infant daughter’s demise. Malachy was then three years of age.
“I was a cheery little lad with a fervent heart and destructive tendencies,” he observed, addressing the fact that relatives and neighbours labelled him as charming, a term that in Ireland implies shrewdness and trickery.
His curriculum vitae comprises only a handful of provable entries (that’s if he ever actually made one). The remarkable deeds attributed to McCourt, be it genuine, exaggerated or even falsified, but now considered legendary, are certainly plausible amongst his close companions.
“The honest fact is, I knew the only thing I’m good at is storytelling and fibbing,” he admitted.
From early on, the young pupil found refuge in literature, showing an immense appetite for reading, despite failing to achieve his fundamental primary certificate at Leamy’s National School. However, in 2002, the Irish department of education and science awarded him an honorary primary school certificate, the first of its kind. This accolade, he affectionately regarded as his sole academic honour.
When he was 15, he joined the Irish Defence Forces School of Music in Dublin. However, for Malachy, military service and trumpet playing were far from a harmonious combination. Consequently, he moved to England. This is where, as Frank McCourt mentioned, he secured a job as a caretaker at an affluent boarding school. Contrary to expectations of acting like a subservient Irish servant, he remained upbeat and convivial, behaving as any student at the school, till he was dismissed from his job.
Subsequently, he undertook a variety of tasks including welding wheels at a bicycle factory and working arduously at the gas works in Coventry. Finally, he was able to accrue enough funds ($200) to journey to the US. Once there, he took up a gamut of jobs encompassing dishwashing, dock work, selling Bibles on Fire Island along with serving in the army. In point of fact, as recalled by novelist Frank Conroy in the New York Times Book Review, he morphed into a quintessential Irishman in profession, as it was all he inherently had.
McCourt also experienced a multitude of unique adventures. These included smuggling gold from Switzerland to India, audaciously attempting a trial for an off-Broadway show that led to his first thespian role in ‘The Tinker’s Wedding’, featuring in movies like ‘Reversal of Fortune’, ‘Bonfire of the Vanities’, and others. Furthermore, he portrayed Henry VIII in adverts for Imperial margarine and Reese’s peanut butter cups, and even enjoyed brief spells as a host on radio and television. In his own words, he was eager to know what he would express next.
Frank McCourt’s initial marriage to Linda Wachsman culminated in a divorce. Afterwards, he maintained an on and off relationship with Diana Huchthausen Galin which led to their marriage in 1965. Alongside his surviving wife Diana McCourt, Frank left behind a daughter, Siobhán McCourt, and a son named Malachy junior from his first matrimony. His second union bore him two sons, Conor and Cormac. He also had a stepdaughter by the name of Nina Galin, nine grandchildren, and one great-grandson. McCourt met his demise in the year 2009. For nearly six decades, Diana and Malachy McCourt resided in the same flat located on Upper West Side, Manhattan. Initially, this information was provided by The New York Times.