International Author and Actor Malachy McCourt a.k.a Frank's Brother

Malachy McCourt was not a big name in Hollywood. I first encountered him at a speaking event at a small local library. There were maybe twenty people there. He was humorous and he made some people uncomfortable with his liberal ideas. It was a good night.

He grew up poor in Ireland and he dispelled the image of a beautiful happy Ireland. He was so poor that he had a brother that died of hunger in the middle of the night with the whole family there. Can you imagine being around 10 years old and see a brother die like that?

I went to a discount book retailer years later after the talk and I found a copy of his book, “A Monks Swimming.” The title came from mis-hearing a line in The “Hail Mary” prayer. The book was a memoir of his younger years in show business. I never heard of him as an actor, but by that time, he was in a daytime drama, had a touring comedy routine, wrote for other shows.

Years later I found his book about the Claddaugh Ring. It was full of history and Irish economics. There is a romance about the ring, but he made it about so much more.

After all these books and jobs, he was primarily known as Frank McCourts brother. Frank wrote the international best seller, “Angela’s Ashes.”

I hadn’t heard from Malachy McCourt through the 2010s. He came out with a book on dying called, “Death Be Not Fatal” in 2017. Frank had died by that point. Malachy was getting on in years. The book was about the past and the present. He wasn’t sure about the future or a having a future. As this was from Malachy McCourt, it wasn’t a depressing sad book.

He passed away almost seven years later. He lived a full life and I don’t believe he had regrets. He probably did. He had business troubles and lost acting gigs.

It was a fluke that Larry Meegan (I did a post on Larry and his mentoring authors on May 21, 2021) recommended going to the library that night. I became fascinated by this author.