On the first page of ‘Angela’s Ashes, McCourt says, “worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood.” In what ways was his childhood miserable? How did being Irish and being Catholic contribute to his misery
My father and mother should have stayed in New York where they met and married and where I was born. Instead, they returned to Ireland when I was four, my brother, Malachy, three, the twins, Oliver and Eugene, barely one, and my sister, Margaret, dead and gone. When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I survived at all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood. People everywhere brag and whimper about the woes of their early years, but nothing can compare with the Irish version: the poverty; the shiftless loquacious alcoholic father; the pious defeated mother moaning by the fire; pompous priests; bullying schoolmasters; the English and the terrible things they did to us for eight hundred long years. Above all—we were wet.
Out in the Atlantic Ocean great sheets of rain gathered to drift slowly up the River Shannon and settle forever in Limerick. The rain dampened the city from the Feast of the Circumcision to New Year’s Eve. It created a ca- cophony of hacking coughs, bronchial rattles, asthmatic wheezes, con- sumptive croaks. It turned noses into fountains, lungs into bacterial sponges. It provoked cures galore; to ease the catarrh you boiled onions in milk blackened with pepper; for the congested passages you made a paste of boiled flour and nettles, wrapped it in a rag, and slapped it, sizzling, on the chest. From October to April the walls of Limerick glistened with the damp. Clothes never dried: tweed and woolen coats housed living things, some- times sprouted mysterious vegetations. In pubs, steam rose from damp bodies and garments to be inhaled with cigarette and pipe smoke laced with the stale fumes of spilled stout and whiskey and tinged with the odor of piss wafting in from the outdoor jakes where many a man puked up his week’s wages
The rain drove us into the church—our refuge, our strength, our only dry place. At Mass, Benediction, novenas, we huddled in great damp clumps, dozing through priest drone, while steam rose again from our clothes to mingle with the sweetness of incense, flowers and candles. Limerick gained a reputation for piety, but we knew it was only the rain. • • • My father, Malachy McCourt, was born on a farm in Toome, County Antrim. Like his father before, he grew up wild, in trouble with the English, or the Irish, or both. He fought with the Old IRA and for some desperate act he wound up a fugitive with a price on his head. When I was a child I would look at my father, the thinning hair, the col- lapsing teeth, and wonder why anyone would give money for a head like that. When I was thirteen my father’s mother told me a secret: as a wee lad your poor father was dropped on his head. It was an accident, he was never the same after, and you must remember that people dropped on their heads can be a bit peculiar.
Because of the price on the head he had been dropped on, he had to be spirited out of Ireland via cargo ship from Galway. In New York, with Prohi- bition in full swing, he thought he had died and gone to hell for his sins. Then he discovered speakeasies and he rejoiced. After wandering and drinking in America and England he yearned for peace in his declining years. He returned to Belfast, which erupted all around him. He said, A pox on all their houses, and chatted with the ladies of Andersontown. They tempted him with delicacies but he waved them away and drank his tea. He no longer smoked or touched alcohol, so what was the use? It was time to go and he died in the Royal Victoria Hospital. My mother, the former Angela Sheehan, grew up in a Limerick slum with her mother, two brothers, Thomas and Patrick, and a sister, Agnes. She never saw her father, who had run off to Australia weeks before her birth. After a night of drinking porter in the pubs of Limerick he staggers down the lane singing his favorite song,
Who threw the overalls in Mrs. Murphy’s chowder? Nobody spoke so he said it all the louder It’s a dirty Irish trick and I can lick the Mick Who threw the overalls in Murphy’s chowder. He’s in great form altogether and he thinks he’ll play a while with little Patrick, one year old. Lovely little fella. Loves his daddy. Laughs when Daddy throws him up in the air. Upsy daisy, little Paddy, upsy daisy, up in the air in the dark, so dark, oh, Jasus, you miss the child on the way down and poor little Patrick lands on his head, gurgles a bit, whimpers, goes quiet. Grandma heaves herself from the bed, heavy with the child in her belly, my mother. She’s barely able to lift little Patrick from the floor. She moans a long moan over the child and turns on Grandpa. Get out of it. Out. If you stay here a minute longer I’ll take the hatchet to you, you drunken lu- natic. By Jesus, I’ll swing at the end of a rope for you. Get out. Grandpa stands his ground like a man. I have a right, he says, to stay in
me own house. She runs at him and he melts before this whirling dervish with a dam- aged child in her arms and a healthy one stirring inside. He stumbles from the house, up the lane, and doesn’t stop till he reaches Melbourne in Aus- tralia. Little Pat, my uncle, was never the same after. He grew up soft in the head with a left leg that went one way, his body the other. He never learned to read or write but God blessed him in another way. When he started to sell newspapers at the age of eight he could count money better than the Chancellor of the Exchequer himself. No one knew why he was called Ab Sheehan, The Abbot, but all Limerick loved him. My mother’s troubles began the night she was born. There is my grand- mother in the bed heaving and gasping with the labor pains, praying to St. Gerard Majella, patron saint of expectant mothers. There is Nurse O’Hal- loran, the midwife, all dressed up in her finery. It’s New Year’s Eve and Mrs. O’Halloran is anxious for this child to be born so that she can rush off to
the parties and celebrations. She tells my grandmother: Will you push, will you, push. Jesus, Mary and holy St. Joseph, if you don’t hurry with this child it won’t be born till the New Year and what good is that to me with me new dress? Never mind St. Gerard Majella. What can a man do for a woman at a time like this even if he is a saint? St. Gerard Majella my arse. My grandmother switches her prayers to St. Ann, patron saint of difficult labor. But the child won’t come. Nurse O’Halloran tells my grandmother, Pray to St. Jude, patron saint of desperate cases. St. Jude, patron of desperate cases, help me. I’m desperate. She grunts and pushes and the infant’s head appears, only the head, my mother, and it’s the stroke of midnight, the New Year. Limerick City erupts with whistles, horns, sirens, brass bands, people calling and singing, Happy New Year. Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and church bells all over ring out the Angelus and Nurse O’Halloran weeps for the waste of a dress, that child still in there and me in me finery. Will you come out, child, will you? Grand- ma gives a great push and the child is in the world, a lovely girl with black
curly hair and sad blue eyes. Ah, Lord above, says Nurse O’Halloran, this child is a time straddler, born with her head in the New Year and her arse in the Old or was it her head in the Old Year and her arse in the New. You’ll have to write to the Pope, missus, to find out what year this child was born in and I’ll save this dress for next year. And the child was named Angela for the Angelus which rang the mid- night hour, the New Year, the minute of her coming and because she was a little angel anyway. Love her as in childhood Though feeble, old and grey. For you’ll never miss a mother’s love Till she’s buried beneath the clay. At the St. Vincent de Paul School, Angela learned to read, write, and calculate and by her ninth year her schooling was done. She tried her hand
at being a charwoman, a skivvy, a maid with a little white hat opening doors, but she could not manage the little curtsy that is required and her mother said, You don’t have the knack of it. You’re pure useless. Why don’t you go to America where there’s room for all sorts of uselessness? I’ll give you the fare. She arrived in New York just in time for the first Thanksgiving Day of the Great Depression. She met Malachy at a party given by Dan MacAdorey and his wife, Minnie, on Classon Avenue in Brooklyn. Malachy liked Angela and she liked him. He had a hangdog look, which came from the three months he had just spent in jail for hijacking a truck. He and his friend John McEr- laine believed what they were told in the speakeasy, that the truck was packed to the roof with cases of canned pork and beans. Neither knew how to drive and when the police saw the truck lurch and jerk along Myrtle Av- enue they pulled it over. The police searched the truck and wondered why anyone would hijack a truck containing, not pork and beans, but cases of buttons.
With Angela drawn to the hangdog look and Malachy lonely after three months in jail, there was bound to be a knee-trembler. A knee-trembler is the act itself done up against a wall, man and woman up on their toes, straining so hard their knees tremble with the excitement that’s in it. That knee-trembler put Angela in an interesting condition and, of course, there was talk. Angela had cousins, the MacNamara sisters, Delia and Philomena, married, respectively, to Jimmy Fortune of County Mayo, and Tommy Flynn, of Brooklyn itself. Delia and Philomena were large women, great-breasted and fierce. When they sailed along the sidewalks of Brooklyn lesser creatures stepped aside, respect was shown. The sisters knew what was right and they knew what was wrong and any doubts could be resolved by the One, Holy, Roman, Catholic and Apostolic Church. They knew that Angela, unmarried, had no right to be in an interesting condition and they would take steps. Steps they took. With Jimmy and Tommy in tow they marched to the speakeasy on Atlantic Avenue where Malachy could be found on Friday, payday when he had a job. The man in the speak, Joey Cacciamani, did not want to admit the sisters but Philomena told him that if he wanted to keep the nose on his face and that door on its hinges he’d better open up for they were there on God’s business. Joey said, Awright, awright, you Irish. Jeezoz! Trouble, trouble. Malachy, at the far end of the bar, turned pale, gave the great-breasted ones a sickly smile, offered them a drink. They resisted the smile and spurned the offer. Delia said, We don’t know what class of a tribe you come from in the North of Ireland. Philomena said, There is a suspicion you might have Presbyterians in your family, which would explain what you did to our cousin. Jimmy said, Ah, now, ah, now. ’Tisn’t his fault if there’s Presbyterians in his family. Delia said, You shuddup. Tommy had to join in. What you did to that poor unfortunate girl is a
disgrace to the Irish race and you should be ashamed of yourself. Och, I am, said Malachy. I am. Nobody asked you to talk, said Philomena. You done enough damage with your blather, so shut your yap. And while your yap is shut, said Delia, we’re here to see you do the right thing by our poor cousin, Angela Sheehan. Malachy said, Och, indeed, indeed. The right thing is the right thing and I’d be glad to buy you all a drink while we have this little talk. Take the drink, said Tommy, and shove it up your ass. Philomena said, Our little cousin no sooner gets off the boat than you are at her. We have morals in Limerick, you know, morals. We’re not like jackrabbits from Antrim, a place crawling with Presbyterians. Jimmy said, He don’t look like a Presbyterian. You shuddup, said Delia. Another thing we noticed, said Philomena. You have a very odd manner. Malachy smiled. I do You do, says Delia. I think ’tis one of the first things we noticed about you, that odd manner, and it gives us a very uneasy feeling. ’Tis that sneaky little Presbyterian smile, said Philomena. Och, said Malachy, it’s just the trouble I have with my teeth. Teeth or no teeth, odd manner or no odd manner, you’re gonna marry that girl, said Tommy. Up the middle aisle you’re going. Och, said Malachy, I wasn’t planning to get married, you know. There’s no work and I wouldn’t be able to support . . . Married is what you’re going to be, said Delia. Up the middle aisle, said Jimmy. You shuddup, said Delia. • • • Malachy watched them leave. I’m in a desperate pickle, he told Joey Caccia- mani. Bet your ass, said Joey. I see them babes comin’ at me I jump inna Hud- son River.
Malachy considered the pickle he was in. He had a few dollars in his pocket from the last job and he had an uncle in San Francisco or one of the other California Sans. Wouldn’t he be better off in California, far from the great-breasted MacNamara sisters and their grim husbands? He would, in- deed, and he’d have a drop of the Irish to celebrate his decision and depar- ture. Joey poured and the drink nearly took the lining off Malachy’s gullet. Irish, indeed! He told Joey it was a Prohibition concoction from the devil’s own still. Joey shrugged. I don’t know nothing. I only pour. Still, it was bet- ter than nothing and Malachy would have another and one for yourself, Joey, and ask them two decent Italians what they’d like and what are you talking about, of course, I have the money to pay for it. He awoke on a bench in the Long Island Railroad Station, a cop rapping on his boots with a nightstick, his escape money gone, the MacNamara sis- ters ready to eat him alive in Brooklyn. • • • On the feast of St. Joseph, a bitter day in March, four months after the
knee-trembler, Malachy married Angela and in August the child was born. In November Malachy got drunk and decided it was time to register the child’s birth. He thought he might name the child Malachy, after himself, but his North of Ireland accent and the alcoholic mumble confused the clerk so much he simply entered the name Male on the certificate. Not until late December did they take Male to St. Paul’s Church to be baptized and named Francis after his father’s father and the lovely saint of Assisi. Angela wanted to give him a middle name, Munchin, after the patron saint of Limerick but Malachy said over his dead body. No son of his would have a Limerick name. It’s hard enough going through life with one name. Sticking on middle names was an atrocious American habit and there was no need for a second name when you’re christened after the man from As- sisi. There was a delay the day of the baptism when the chosen godfather, John McErlaine, got drunk at the speakeasy and forgot his responsibilities. Philomena told her husband, Tommy, he’d have to be godfather. Child’s
soul is in danger, she said. Tommy put his head down and grumbled. All right. I’ll be godfather but I’m not goin’ to be responsible if he grows up like his father causin’ trouble and goin’ through life with the odd manner for if he does he can go to John McErlaine at the speakeasy. The priest said, True for you, Tom, decent man that you are, fine man that never set foot inside a speakeasy. Malachy, fresh from the speakeasy himself, felt insulted and wanted to argue with the priest, one sacrilege on top of another. Take off that collar and we’ll see who’s the man. He had to be held back by the great-breasted ones and their husbands grim. Angela, new mother, agitated, forgot she was holding the child and let him slip into the baptismal font, a total immersion of the Protestant type. The altar boy assisting the priest plucked the infant from the font and restored him to Angela, who sobbed and clutched him, dripping, to her bosom. The priest laughed, said he had never seen the likes, that the child was a regular little Baptist now and hard- ly needed a priest. This maddened Malachy again and he wanted to jump at the priest for calling the child some class of a Protestant. The priest said Quiet, man, you’re in God’s house, and when Malachy said, God’s house, my arse, he was thrown out on Court Street because you can’t say arse in God’s house. After baptism Philomena said she had tea and ham and cakes in her house around the corner. Malachy said, Tea? and she said, Yes, tea, or is it whiskey you want? He said tea was grand but first he’d have to go and deal with John McErlaine, who didn’t have the decency to carry out his duties as godfather. Angela said, You’re only looking for an excuse to run to the speakeasy, and he said, As God is my witness, the drink is the last thing on my mind. Angela started to cry. Your son’s christening day and you have to go drinking. Delia told him he was a disgusting specimen but what could you expect from the North of Ireland. Malachy looked from one to the other, shifted on his feet, pulled his cap down over his eyes, shoved his hands deep in his trouser pockets, said, Och, aye, the way they do in the far reaches of County Antrim, turned, hur- ried up Court Street to the speakeasy on Atlantic Avenue where he was sure
they’d ply him with free drink in honor of his son’s baptism. At Philomena’s house the sisters and their husbands ate and drank while Angela sat in a corner nursing the baby and crying. Philomena stuffed her mouth with bread and ham and rumbled at Angela, That’s what you get for being such a fool. Hardly off the boat and you fall for that lunatic. You shoulda stayed single, put the child up for adoption, and you’d be a free woman today. Angela cried harder and Delia took up the attack, Oh, stop it, Angela, stop it. You have nobody to blame but yourself for gettin’ into trou- ble with a drunkard from the North, a man that doesn’t even look like a Catholic, him with his odd manner. I’d say that . . . that . . . Malachy has a streak of the Presbyterian in him right enough. You shuddup, Jimmy. If I was you, said Philomena, I’d make sure there’s no more children. He don’t have a job, so he don’t, an’ never will the way he drinks. So . . . no more children, Angela. Are you listenin’ to me? I am, Philomena A year later another child was born. Angela called him Malachy after his fa- ther and gave him a middle name, Gerard, after his father’s brother. The MacNamara sisters said Angela was nothing but a rabbit and they wanted nothing to do with her till she came to her senses. Their husbands agreed. • • • I’m in a playground on Classon Avenue in Brooklyn with my brother, Malachy. He’s two, I’m three. We’re on the seesaw. Up, down, up, down. Malachy goes up. I get off. Malachy goes down. Seesaw hits the ground. He screams. His hand is on his mouth and there’s blood. Oh, God. Blood is bad. My mother will kill me. And here she is, trying to run across the playground. Her big belly slows her.
She says, What did you do? What did you do to the child? I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what I did. She pulls my ear. Go home. Go to bed. Bed? In the middle of the day? She pushes me toward the playground gate. Go. She picks up Malachy and waddles off. • • • My father’s friend, Mr. MacAdorey, is outside our building. He’s standing at the edge of the sidewalk with his wife, Minnie, looking at a dog lying in the gutter. There is blood all around the dog’s head. It’s the color of the blood from Malachy’s mouth. Malachy has dog blood and the dog has Malachy blood. I pull Mr. MacAdorey’s hand. I tell him Malachy has blood like the dog. Oh, he does, indeed, Francis. Cats have it, too. And Eskimos. All the same blood. Minnie says, Stop that, Dan. Stop confusing the wee fellow. She tells me
A year later another child was born. Angela called him Malachy after his father and gave him a middle name, Gerard, after his father’s brother.
The MacNamara sisters said Angela was nothing but a rabbit and they wanted nothing to do with her till she came to her senses.
Their husbands agreed.
- • •
I’m in a playground on Classon Avenue in Brooklyn with my brother, Malachy. He’s two, I’m three. We’re on the seesaw.
Up, down, up, down.
Malachy goes up.
I get off.
Malachy goes down. Seesaw hits the ground. He screams. His hand is on his mouth and there’s blood.
Oh, God. Blood is bad. My mother will kill me.
And here she is, trying to run across the playground. Her big belly slows her.
She says, What did you do? What did you do to the child?
I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what I did.
She pulls my ear. Go home. Go to bed.
Bed? In the middle of the day?
She pushes me toward the playground gate. Go.
She picks up Malachy and waddles off.
- • •
My father’s friend, Mr. MacAdorey, is outside our building. He’s standing at the edge of the sidewalk with his wife, Minnie, looking at a dog lying in the gutter. There is blood all around the dog’s head. It’s the color of the blood from Malachy’s mouth.
Malachy has dog blood and the dog has Malachy blood.
I pull Mr. MacAdorey’s hand. I tell him Malachy has blood like the dog.
Oh, he does, indeed, Francis. Cats have it, too. And Eskimos. All the same blood.
Minnie says, Stop that, Dan. Stop confusing the wee fellow. She tells me