Over 600 People Turn Out For Memorial to Malachy McCourt at Symphony Space

There were jokes and songs and uproarious tales and a few choked back tears as 600 people filled Symphony Space on the UWS to bid farewell to Malachy McCourt, the author, playwright, actor and all-around raconteur who died in March at the age of 92.

The memorial on May 30 was sponsored by the Irish American Artists and Writers and drew a vast cross section of New Yorkers with a distinctly Irish flavor. The co-masters of ceremony for the event were author Colum McCann (author Everything in This Country Must and Let the Great World Spin) and John McDonagh, New York’s most literary cab driver who co-hosted the “Radio Free Eireann” show with McCourt on WBAI.

There were clips of McCourt’s Pulitzer Prize winning brother Frank (author of “Angela’s Ashes” and “‘Tis,” who died in 2009) singing a duet, “The Bells of Hell,” which they performed for years in their two-man play entitled “A Couple of Blaguards.” The song title also became the name of a bar that Malachy ran for years in Greenwich Village. And we learned that he was initially barred from advertising in the Yellow Page because the bar had the name “hell” in it. McCourt sued and won, so now we can all go to hell...except of course the bar closed years ago. Which is probably just as well for a man who gave up the drink decades ago.

Author, playwright and musician Larry Kirwan who would go on to front the Celtic rock band Black 47 recalled how he got his start performing in the back room of the Bells of the Hell and forged a lifelong friendship—and a long running opposition to wars from Vietnam to Iraq—with Malachy. Kirwan recalled a humorous and bawdy exchange where McCourt urged Kirwan to join him in picketing the Young Republicans Club where the Grannies Against the Iraq War were protesting.

In a video clip, Malachy recalled that after he and his wife had run out of money to provide for their special needs daughter, Nina, she was sent to what they erroneously thought was a caring place, the Willowbrook Mental Hospital, run by New York State. McCourt was among the outraged parents and workers at the Staten Island facility who turned to young Geraldo Rivera to expose the horrific conditions that eventually led the state to permanently shut down the facility.

McCourt frequently railed against the policies of Donald Trump and co-host McDonagh said it was fitting that the memorial to McCourt was on the same day that “a former game show host from Queens was found guilty on 34 counts in downtown Manhattan.” which drew applause from the crowd.

Brendan Fay, a leader of LBGTQ+ movement and a co-founder of the St Patrick’s For All parade in Queens also spoke. When the group was still barred from the Ancient Order of Hibernians (AOH) parade in New York City because they barred gays, Fay recalled he asked Malachy if he’d be the grand marshal of the Queens parade. Malachy not only agreed, but he recruited his three brothers, Frank, Alfie and Michael to join him at the head of the parade.

In another clip, the Brooklyn-born McCourt who returned to Limerick, Ireland, when he was three years old, recalled how none of his brothers lived past 80. Two young twins Oliver and Eugene died in Ireland when they were youngsters, living in a slum with no indoor plumbing while their father drank away what little money they had.

The memorial wasn’t strictly an Irish affair. Tony Demarco, one of the founders of the NY Trad Fest broke out his fiddle and David Rothenberg, radio host and founder of The Fortune Society, spoke movingly of his time working with McCourt.

McCourt long ago acknowledged that his carousing in his younger days led to the breakup of his first marriage. But he said he was fortunate to meet and marry the woman he called “my beloved Diana.” McDonagh joked that for years he thought the first name of McCourt’s wife was “Beloved.”

McCourt’s formal education stopped when he was 13, but he still wrote three books, including the memoir of his upbringing in abject poverty in Limerick, “A Monk Swimming,” as well as “Singing My Hymn Song,” and the appropriately titled “Death Need Not be Fatal.” It was a source of price to Malachy that “A Monk” landed on the bestseller lists while older brother Frank’s Pulitzer Prize winning memoir “Angela’s Ashes” was still comfortably nestled on the list.

Singer Judy Collins, who first met McCourt when they were acting in the soap opera, Ryan’s Hope, led the crowd in singing “Amazing Grace.” McCourt’s children including sons Cormac, Conor, and Malachy, Jr. and daughter Siobhan all spoke movingly. Author Peter Quinn, a co-founder of the Irish American Artists and Writers and himself the author of “Banished Children of Eve,” recalled he had now delivered eulogies for all four of the McCourt brothers who reached adulthood.

In one video clip that was shown on a big screen, Malachy marveled how he had managed to outlive all of his brothers, none of whom reached age 80. As his health declined in recent years and he was confined to a wheelchair he said he did not fear death but acknowledged “I’m in the departure lounge.”

The most poignant moment of the night was when the entire extended family and many friends gathered onstage to sing his signature song, “The Wild Mountain Thyme.” Some family members who had held it together valiantly for most of the three-hour tribute were moved to tears as all of Symphony Space joined in singing: “And we’ll all go together/To pluck wild mountain thyme/All around the blooming heather/Will ye go lassie go?”