When tour guide, Michael O’Donnell, read the Pulitzer Prize winning book, ‘Angela’s Ashes’ by Frank McCourt, he felt a great affinity with it.

"Although I didn’t know Frank McCourt personally, I was born into the same poverty stricken Limerick, a few years after Frank, and the book brought back great memories for me,” he explained.

Michael conducts historical tours of Limerick and found that after the Pulitzer Prize was awarded to Frank, more and more people were asking him about the locations mentioned in Angela’s Ashes.

"I came up with the idea of organising Angela’s Ashes tours. Naturally, I needed the permission of Frank McCourt.The reply came, it said, "Dear Michael, Every success with your new Angela’s Ashes tours, Frank.”

Michael didn’t envisage the huge demand there would be for the tours. " My first tour was on November 18th 1998 and I haven’t stopped since. I conduct a tour every day from the Limerick Tourist Office at 2:30 pm. Of course, the film followed the book and now Angela’s Ashes is part of the school curriculum in many countries.

Michael was amazed to discover that there was a website in Japan, which had thousands of fans totally dedicated to Angela’s Ashes. They even had a map of Limerick with all of the sites mentioned on the book marked on it.Michael then started to get group bookings from Japanese people anxious to do the walking tour.

"There are sometimes up to thirty of them at a time and they usually bring an interpreter with them,” he said. "I was constantly amazed at their interest and their knowledge. They sometimes knew passages of the book off by heart and had loads of questions to ask about the different locations and characters in the book”.

The tour costs ten euro and lasts for more than two hours.