Malachy McCourt, the lovably irreverent Irish American writer and actor, passed away today, March 11. He was 92 years old.
Malachy McCourt’s death was confirmed on social media by his family on Monday.
Born in Brooklyn, New York on September 20, 1931, Malachy was raised in Co Limerick by his Irish parents. His childhood was famously featured in his brother Frank McCourt's Pulitzer Prize-winning book "Angela's Ashes."
Malachy returned to the US in 1952 at the age of 20. He appeared in film, stage, and television productions, authored two memoirs, opened a pub in NYC, and even mounted a long-shot campaign to become governor of New York in 2006.
According to Limerick Leader, Malachy revealed in 2023 that he had been diagnosed several years previously with Inclusion Body Myositis (IBM), a rare condition and a muscular disease where your muscles “waste away." He had more recently been diagnosed with cancer, which affected both his prostate and skin.
On Monday, Dan Barry of The New York Times led tributes to Malachy McCourt:
The great Malachy McCourt, author, actor, raconteur, and fierce advocate of justice and equality, has died at 92. In his honor, live the hell out of your life. As he would say: “Sing it, children!” pic.twitter.com/BR6XpmPJA0
— Dan Barry (@DanBarryNYT) March 11, 2024
In August 2022, McCourt, who was in hospice care at the time, chatted with IrishCentral’s Cahir O’Doherty about life and death.
“I'm in a program called hospice now,” he told IrishCentral at the time.
“It goes like this, they have to keep you for six months. If you die, you go off the program. If you don't die, you go off the program. It's a really awkward sort of situation. The worst thing to do is sit around twiddling your thumbs, apparently.”
When asked about death, McCourt replied with his trademark humor: “Oh, I don't know. I'm 90 now, I'll be 91 in September and I've had an amazing life. And that's enough for me. I don't have the energy for happiness. It sounds very wearing to me now.”
Even heaven sounds like a bust, he said.
“The righteous sitting there to God's right hand, watching the hairs grow in his ear. And on His left-hand side, there's me and Karl Marx.
"But no, I don't have any belief in that, and Cahir, I have no fear of it, do you know what I mean? I don't fear death. I've got heart disease. I got cancer. I've got all kinds of things wrong with me. But I'm not hastening it, either. I have a loving, beloved wife Diana, I have kids and grandkids. And I'm really having a very, extremely peaceful life, reading and writing and that sort of thing. So that's funny. It's rather nice.”
Now you're going about your days with your eyes open, and that's all as promised to any of us, am I right, Cahir asked.
“You're right, and it's the healthiest way I can think of looking at it. To live without fear.
"I enjoy fairy tales, but I do not believe them, and heaven is a fairy tale.
"But that's all hell is too, hell is just a pain in the arse.”
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