A Brother Remembers Frank McCourt | Malachy McCourt | Big Think

A Brother Remembers Frank McCourt

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“He was the only smaller person that I looked up to,” says his younger brother Malachy.

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Malachy McCourt:

Malachy McCourt was born in Brooklyn, USA and from the age of three was raised in Limerick, Ireland. He returned to the land of his birth at the age of twenty and again worked at the manual tasks such as longshoreman, truck loader, dishwasher, until he became an actor. That career took him to Broadway and Off-Broadway and regional theatres in plays such as Mass Appeal, Da, The Hostage, Inherit the Wind, Carousel and Translations. The soap operas such as Ryan's Hope, Search for Tomorrow, One Life to Live, and All My Children were also a good source of work and sustenance as were the movies Molly Maguires, She's the One, The Devil's Own, Green Card, and TV movies such as You Can't Go Home Again and The Dain Curse. Due to a heavy schedule of writing, book signings and public appearances McCourt had to take a sabbatical from the acting trade but is now back after completing five movies Happy Hour, Guru of Sex, Gods and Generals, and Ash Wednesday plus a running part in the HBO prison series Oz. As well as being the co-author of the play A Couple of Blaguards with his brother Frank, Malachy has written his own New York Times bestseller memoir, A Monk Swimming, published by Hyperion Press. His memoir, Singing My Him Song, now out in paperback is published by Harper Collins. Running Press recently published four of Malachy’s books: the history of the song Danny Boy, a history of The Claddagh Ring, Voices of Ireland, an anthology, and Malachy McCourt’s History of Ireland. Recent books, Harold Be Thy Name and Bush Lies in State, are published by Welcome Rain. In the works is I Never Drink When I’m Sober for Harper Collins. Malachy writes a column, Sez I to Myself, that appears in the Manhattan Spirit, The Westsider and Our Town in NYC.

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TRANSCRIPT:

Question: What was it like to lose your older brother last year?

Malachy McCourt: To lose one parent is a tragedy, to lose both is utter carelessness. So, it’s a euphemism. Frank died in July. And he wrote “Angela’s Ashes” in 1996. And he had just retired a year or so before from teaching in a New York City High School system. And I always knew he was a good writer, or a wonderful writer, and I begged him for years to write a book. Now, I didn’t know what he was going to call it. We were very good friends. We wrote a play together called “A Couple of Blaguards,” which we performed. We talked to each other on a daily basis. And he was, when my father left, although Frank was only 10, he actually took over then as the Paterfamilias – the father of the family. And he was good. He looked after us all even though I was only a year, a month, and a day younger. He was smaller than me, but he was the only smaller person that I looked up to. And all his life, he was a good friend, a decent guy, great sense of humor, extraordinary intellect, and loved passing on his knowledge. All of his students adored him because he had the advantage of having no formal education in the sense that he did have – he left school like I did at the age of 13, and he went back when he was 22. And somehow or another faked his way into New York University and got himself a degree after being on probation, and then became a teacher.

So, he wasn’t circumscribed by ordinary thinking about teaching. If a teacher loves what she is teaching, or he is teaching as the case may be. Then again, you pass that on, the love of it, rather than punishment. “Ah, we have a test!” This is what we are always doing with children, testing. Our children don’t need testing, they need loving. And that was Frank’s idea. Love them. Love what you’re talking about, love the words.

There was an Irish poet named John Millington, and he said, “Words, particularly in a play, should have the texture of a crisp, autumn apple.” That’s the way I think of it. And I think that’s the way Frank thought about it, too.

Question: Has your father deserting your family influenced how you are as a father?

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