Summary

Chapter 5. Frank begins to notice the differences and resentments that exist not only in his immediate family, but in their Limerick neighborhood. He notes his mother doesn’t speak to his grandmother, his grandmother doesn’t speak to his father, and his mother doesn’t speak to her siblings.

In the neighborhood, he notes Catholics don’t speak to Protestants, especially those who converted out of starvation during the country’s Famine. Those Protestants are known as “soupers.” The worst Protestants, he says, are “the filthy informers.”

Frank notes that his mother, distant with her own family, has a dramatically different relationship with a neighbor, Bridey Hannon. The two women love to talk, drinking tea and smoking cigarettes by the McCourt’s fireplace. With Frank often listening in on their conversations, he hears his mother sing a song about a woman who marries “a man...