Author, Frank McCourt begins the first chapter of his Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir with an observation that his parents should have remained in New York, where they met, married and became parents. He recounts his earliest childhood memories and his family's return to Ireland when he was four years old. "Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood," says McCourt.
Frank's father, Malachy, was reared in Toome, County Antrim, Ireland. After becoming a fugitive, because of his activities with the Irish Republican Army (IRA), he travels to New York during Prohibition. Malachy becomes an alcoholic; but Frank notes that his father returned to Belfast as an old man and gave up drinking, before dying in the Royal Victoria Hospital.
Frank's mother, Angela Sheehan, grew.....
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