LET me take you back a few of years to the time when I, like many others, first heard of a certain Mr Frank McCourt and his childhood memoirs of life in the lanes of Limerick.
At that time my family were official members of the Irish diaspora having left Limerick in 1988 and moved to England. So when Mum mentioned Angela's Ashes to me one day there was understandable intrigue. Her father, Timmy Clancy had been born and bred in the city and after marrying Alice (Lal) from Waterford, they raised five children at their family home in Roxboro. Grandad would have been about fifteen years older than McCourt and had worked as an electrician in the cement factory in Mungret, cycling out along the Dock Road every day. McCourt's father, Malachy had occasionally found work there and is also mentioned cycling out with his lunch-tin hanging on the handlebars.
When she finally got hold of a copy, Mum had devoured the book in days, searching and remembering the names and places that Grandad mentioned when she was a young girl and now more importantly still existed and reminded us of home. I of course - never liking to jump on a bandwagon - read it some time later. It was indeed a good read with a bitter humour that amused but also shocked, bringing tears of laughter but ultimately sadness. I was delighted that many of my English friends also enjoyed the book and felt endeared rather than excluded by the Irish references.
In due course the Pulitzer Prizewinner became a UK bestseller. Ever since its success, I find that when I introduce myself to people and they ask where I'm from, a significant number of them recognise the name and proudly tell me they have read the book. Some of you may scoff at this but therein lies the truth of McCourt's book; it is a very readable and entertaining book that put Limerick on the map. Whether for the right or wrong reasons is clearly debatable and brings me nicely to Melbourne on a warm Sunday afternoon at the Celtic Club in March this year.
I had been in the city on a working holiday visa for the previous six weeks, having carefully chosen this great city of culture as a suitable starting point for my Oz sabbatical. Some weeks before,I'd seen an advert for an Angela's Ashes seminar and skimmed over the speakers and topics. It wasn't my usual cup of tea but hey, here I was on the other side of the world on a voyage of discovery, so why not? And it was free! It also welcomed students of VCE English, which suggested some sort of literary critique of the book. Given my interest in writing (which I was hoping to pursue whilst in Australia), I decided it might be worth going along.
I made a note in my diary and remembered to mention it to Mum the next time I phoned home. I suppose I took the mick a bit when I read out the impressive list of speakers and their topics to her. This was due in part to my awareness of the backlash in Limerick over McCourt's book -including the radio DJ who made it his mission to highlight every apparent untruth in McCourt's memoir and even wrote his own book, entitled 'Tisn't.
But perhaps it was more self-deprecation as this sounded like a highbrow seminar discussing a book about a miserable childhood that took place on the other side of the world, in a place that many people had never heard of. You see when I was younger it always seemed that RTE news seemed to be preoccupied with what went on in Dublin and it's environs and there had always been some grievance in Limerick (and in many towns and cities beyond the Pale) about their apparent lack of media coverage. The tourists always flocked to Bunratty and then as they blinked on their onward journey through Limerick, they missed it. Mum seemed similarly amused by the idea of it all and when I named a Clancy amongst the speakers even joked that he might be a cousin.
So here I was, flying solo in a room full of English students (the younger ones at the front with notepads) and from the accents I overheard, no doubt many first and second generation Irish-Australians. I waited in anticipation. A few people who looked like they might be the speakers were milling around at the bar, which ironically couldn't serve alcohol due to the VCE students in the audience. I'd only just made it there on time as I was happily shopping and dawdling down on Bourke Street where I wondered if this seminar might be way over my head and a bit pseudo-intellectual for me.
"Never mind, I'm here now", I thought to myself, "and I can always politely leave if I feel the need."
First up was indeed a Clancy, Dermot, a senior lecturer in sociology at Victoria University speaking on Working Class Limerick. He gave a useful insight into both the depth and some of the causes of the poverty that pervaded Limerick City during McCourt's childhood. He suggested that McCourt's family were an 'underclass' of the urban working class, in that they were both unskilled and unemployed. At the time the economic policy of deValera's government was focused on boosting employment and development in rural areas rather than dealing with the precariously unemployed in their city slums.
Limerick was then purported to be the most pious city in Ireland, which will no doubt have contributed to McCourt's general bitterness towards the Catholic Church. However, no priest is ever mentioned visiting McCourt's home in the book, which would certainly have been very unusual for that time. This could suggest that either McCourt chose not to mention such visits in the book or perhaps the underclass of Limerick to which he belonged weren't deemed worthy of a visit. Whatever the reasons behind it, it was certainly true that Limerick had been a tough place to grow up in.
Professor Francis Devlin Glass, an associate professor of literary studies at Deakin University spoke next about the Tragedy, Comedy and Brinkmanship in the book and went a good way to explain what it was exactly that had made this Pulitzer prize-winning book such a publishing phenomenon. A huge Irish-American diaspora boosted initial sales of the book but McCourt could indeed tell a good yarn and she explained how the disarming comedy is cleverly effected by the use of the underdog child narrator. Many of the points made were cleverly illustrated by another speaker, Irish Australian of the year, Mr Eugene O'Rourke who read, in his native Leitrim accent, from passages of McCourt's book, bringing many laughs and gasps from the audience.
The main criticisms of the book, from Prof Devlin Glass's point of view is the strong culture of victimhood that is accepted in the book and the recycling of Irish stereotypes. Like McCourt, there were many people that did rise up against the life of poverty they found themselves living in Limerick and many other cities in the country, but the "miserable Irish Catholic childhood" as portrayed in Angela's Ashes is a far more bankable read!
Finally Val Noone, editor of Táin, gave a brief perspective as a visitor to Limerick. He inevitably led us into the whole debate on the accuracy of McCourt's memoir and the furore that has divided Limerick ever since Angela's Ashes first arrived on bookshelves throughout the world. Val brought to our attention a report from the Limerick Leader in 1997, when an ex-Leamy's schoolmate of McCourt's approached him at a book signing in O'Mahony's on O'Connell Street. In an emotional demonstration of his contempt for both McCourt and his book, the man, Paddy Malone, who tore up his copy of Angela's Ashes right in front of the author and his wife and promptly walked out of the shop.
The discussion was then opened up to members of the audience and several gave their perspectives and thoughts on the book and some even had memories of Limerick. Val Noone, directing his questions to the VCE students, wondered what the younger generation thought of the book. Generally they seemed to find it a difficult book to read. Thinking that, at 28, I could legitimately call myself a member of the younger generation, I decided to add my tuppence worth. Nodding at Dermot still sitting on the podium, I mentioned that Grandad was a Clancy and how the book had brought back many treasured memories of him. More importantly it gave me a deeper appreciation of how life may have been for him and his family. He died soon after my family left Limerick but I was very close to him and having read the book I had even more respect for the man. Eugene O'Rourke then rose and pointed out that the life of poverty McCourt had described was in no way unique to Limerick and he gave his own moving childhood account of his mother's work as a district nurse in County Leitrim.
After the seminar I was gathering up my shopping bags when Dermot came over to say hello and wondered if we might be cousins. He had been a bit of a puzzle to me during his talk as he clearly had a very Irish name, spoke with personal experience about Limerick and being taught by the priests but sounded like he had an English accent. Given the number of Clancys in the world I thought the chances very slim despite the fact that his father had hailed from Limerick but nonetheless we chatted and tried to figure out if we knew the same people back home. When I mentioned that my family had moved to England his eyes suddenly lit up.
"You're the family that moved away? Your parents came down to my mothers' funeral in London I'm sure of it."
"Aunty Chrissie?" I said, remembering Mum sometimes talking about an aunt in London related to Grandad.
"Yes!"
And suddenly there I was, as far away from Limerick as I could possibly be, standing and shaking the hand of my second cousin.
Dermot's father, Michael was Grandad's brother and he had moved to London as a young man, married and raised a family there. Like Grandad, he was also an electrician and had died shortly after his retirement in 1973, the same year I was born. Dermot and I chatted a bit more in the bar, worked out a bit more of our family tree and I was given an open invite to come down and meet his family in Williamstown. I also met the other speakers and was invited by Val to write a piece on the seminar for Táin and so here we are. As you read this I'll probably be leaving Melbourne perhaps on my way to Perth. However I'm glad I ignored my initial doubts and attended that seminar as I learnt more history of my home-town, valuable insight into the makings of a bestseller, found a cousin I never knew I even had and made some new and welcoming friends. Next time I'll be there with bells on. Slainte!
(And by reprinting this Australian essay in the Limerick Leader, the story has come full circle.)
Verna Walroth is a writer and pharmacist.
Brother Peter, parents Phil and Peter Wallroth.
She was born and lived in Corbally and went to Scoil Ide and U.C.C. until family moved to England in 1988. Trained and worked as a pharmacist in the UK.
She went to Australia in Feb of this yera to pursue writing and a bit of pharmacy on the side!
She is currently in Melbourne where she is working worked at the Royal Childrens Hospital Pharmacy Dept for a few months but will soon be heading to Perth.
