It's one month since the death of Frank McCourt and celebrations of his life and work are continuing across America.

Family members, friends, and past high school students attended the month's mind ceremony in the Holy Name of Jesus Church on West 96th Street, New York where Fr Brian Jordan promised 'we are going to cry, laugh and dance'.

The Angela's Ashes author died on July 19 and would have celebrated his 79th birthday last Wednesday.

At an earlier memorial of the author in Rosie O'Grady's bar in New York, the former United States president Bill Clinton drew laughter from the crowd after recalling how Frank had not liked his own memoir, My Life.

As Frank once proclaimed he didn't know what a birthday party was when he was growing up in Limerick, one of his former students is also throwing a party in his honour this week.

Meanwhile, Fr Jordan said the service in New York was 'a celebration of a wonderful man who gave a literary gift to the Irish people' and not a melancholic affair.

Frank's brother, Malachy delivered the eulogy at the ceremony, which was also attended by Frank's third wife, Ellen, daughter Maggie and brothers, Alphie and Michael.

In San Francisco, former bartender Michael McCourt will hold a public wake in the Washington Square Bar & Grill, where he worked for many years, on Saturday, August 29.

Frank,Malachy & alfie

While Mr McCourt was alive, he made known his apprehensions about public memorials and his own memorials are proving to be the exact opposite.

"I've been to a lot of memorial services in New York lately, Arthur Miller and so on. They are very pompous occasions. I don't want that," he told the Irish Voice.

A concert will be dedicated to the Pulitzer Prize winner in California as part of the Sun Valley Writers' Conference this Sunday.

A public memorial celebration of his life has been set for October 6 at the Symphony Space on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

It is understood that a number of Limerick people will travel to New York for the memorial to pay their respects in person to the McCourt family.