Angela’s Ashes opens with the author, Frank McCourt, describing his childhood as a “miserable Irish Catholic childhood,” characterized by abject poverty, illness, and the alcoholism of his father, Malachy.
This chapter flashes back to describe the checkered history of Frank’s parents.
Malachy grows up in northern Ireland and, while fighting for the old Irish Republican Army, commits an unspecified crime. A price is placed on his head for committing the crime, forcing him to leave Ireland for America. A big drinker already, Malachy is dismayed to learn about the Prohibition in America. But he eventually discovers underground “speakeasies,” illegal drinking establishments. We also learn later in life, Malachy gives up drinking and “waits to die.”
Frank’s mother, Angela Sheehan, was born into the impoverished slums of Limerick. Her father, a drinker, once dropped her younger brother, Ab, on his head and injured him for life. After that incident, Angela’s father left Ireland and she never saw him again.
As a young woman, Angela immigrated to America and lived with her cousins, the McNamara sisters. She eventually meets Malachy, recently out of prison on a theft charge, and she becomes pregnant out of wedlock. Her opinionated cousins, backed by their husbands, tell Malachy he must marry Angela.
They do marry, and Frank is born. One year later, Angela gives birth to a second son, Malachy, and two years after that, to twin sons, Eugene and Oliver. While living on Classon Avenue in Brooklyn, and with four young sons to care for, Angela gives birth to Margaret, the couple’s only girl. During this time, Malachy stops drinking and becomes a doting father to Margaret. But because he loses his job, the family is desperate and starving.
Seven weeks after her birth, Margaret dies quietly in the family’s apartment one night. Her death sends Angela into a depression, and the boys must fend for themselves. Malachy, who disappears for two days after the baby’s death, begins drinking again. When neighbors realize the family is in dire straits, they contact Angela’s cousins, who write a letter to Angela’s mother, asking her to send money so the family can return to Ireland.
As the chapter ends, the family is aboard a steamer that is pulling out of New York Harbor. After pointing out the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island to her children, Angela leans over the side of the ship and vomits.
