(PatriotWise.com) — Irish-American Malachy McCourt, whose family’s immigrant story was recounted in his brother’s Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir “Angela’s Ashes” died on Monday at the age of 92, the Washington Post reported.
McCourt’s son Conor confirmed his father’s death at a Manhattan hospital, noting that the outspoken Irish bartender and radio host passed away while listening to a recording of the Chieftains’ “Will Ye Go Lassie Go.”
The boisterous actor, broadcaster, and perennial talk show guest entered hospice care in the summer of 2022, but his condition surprised doctors, who released him from care in November.
In a recent interview with the New York Times, McCourt said that he woke up every day happy that there was no coffin over his head. He confirmed to the Times that he suffered from multiple cancers, muscular degeneration, and a heart condition.
Born in Brooklyn on September 20, 1931, Malachy McCourt was the son of Irish immigrants, Malachy and Angela McCourt. His older brother Frank, a former high school English teacher, in 1996 penned his memoir of growing poor in Ireland after his sister and twin brothers died.
Following the death of his baby sister Margaret, the McCourts moved back to Limerick in Ireland, which Frank described in “Angela’s Ashes” as “one of the juiciest slums this side of Bombay.” It was there that McCourt’s father abandoned Angela and the children.
Malachy left school at the age of 13 and eventually returned to New York seven years later in 1952.
He and his brother Frank turned their poor immigrant upbringing into a 2-man musical revue titled “A Couple of Blaguards,” which recounted their childhood in Limerick and their return to America as young men.
Like his more famous author brother, Malachy McCourt also wrote several books, including two memoirs and a history of the well-known Irish ballad “Danny Boy.”
Malachy was married twice, first to Linda Wachsman and then to Diana Galin.
He is survived by his wife, two children from his marriage to Wachsman, Siobhan and Malachy, and two children from his marriage to Galin, Conor and Cormac, as well as a stepdaughter Nina, nine grandchildren, and a great-grandson.
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