Frank McCourt was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1930, but returned to his parents' native Ireland when he was four years old, along with his brother, Malachy, and his twin brothers, Oliver and Eugene, who would both die within a year of arriving in Ireland. His father, Malachy McCourt, was an alcoholic who often "drank the money" that was meant to support the family, and as a result the McCourts—later to include two more brothers, Michael and Alphie—grew up in desperate poverty, since Angela, McCourt's mother, could barely support the family. Malachy (the elder) ultimately abandoned the family. McCourt received a harsh Catholic education in Limerick, Ireland, and after working as a...
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