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FAME CAME late to Frank McCourt. At the age of 66, he became a literary phenomenon when he took two of life’s most potent ingredients — tragedy and humour — and turned them into a best-selling memoir-novel that caught the public imagination and brought its author international recognition that reached its height with the prestigious Pulitzer Prize.

With its focus on a bygone Ireland, Angela’s Ashesdid for the Limerick of his working-class childhood what O’Casey had done for Dublin and its tenements — but without the ideological polemic. Like O’Casey, he was first and foremost a storyteller who could hold and transport his legions of devotees. With his intense love of language, he had what was once described as “the perfect Irish brogue: lyrical but penetrable”.