A book of condolences has been opened by Limerick City Council today in memory of author Frank McCourt who died on Sunday night aged 78.
It was opened this afternoon beside the reception area of City Hall at Merchant’s Quay.
Irish American McCourt was best known for the Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir Angela's Ashes, which chronicled his impoverished upbringing in Limerick.
McCourt died at a hospice in New York City where he had suffered from meningitis and metastatic melanoma.
A school teacher who came to writing late in life, McCourt won acclaim with his poignant, extraordinarily bleak picture of a childhood growing up in the slums of Limerick.
Angela's Ashes brought McCourt a 1997 Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award and other honours. Millions of copies of the book were sold worldwide and it was adapted into a 1999 movie starring Emily Watson and Robert Carlyle.
McCourt turned to his life in the United States for subsequent books, Tisand Teacher Man.
Born in New York City, he was the eldest of seven children born to Irish immigrant parents.
Angela's Asheswas an unsparing memoir that captured a feckless, drunkard father with a gift for story-telling. When not drunk, his father was absent, turning his back on a family so poor, McCourt wrote, that they were reduced to burning the furniture in their rented hovel to keep warm.
After leaving school at 13, McCourt supported his mother and brothers and sisters with occasional jobs and petty crime.
At 19, he returned to the United States, finding work at a New York hotel. He subsequently trained as a school teacher, only later becoming a published writer.
His brother, Malachy McCourt, is an actor and author who has appeared in numerous film, television and theatre productions.
“He had lost his hearing and his eyesight was a bit wobbly as well, but the sense of whimsy was intact. Until the end of his days he had that whimsy and it was great,” Malachy said.
The McCourt family are meeting today to discuss the final arrangements for the writer’s funeral which is expected to take place in New York.
The ashes of the are expected to be scattered over the River Shannon in his native city in accordance with his wishes.
It is expected that Limerick will be represented at the funeral by the mayor Kevin Kiely and an official from Limerick City Council.
Mr Kiely said he was deeply saddened to learn of the death of one of Limerick’s most successful and talented sons. “Limerick is very proud of, and will never forget, Frank McCourt.”
Yesterday New York mayor Michael Bloomberg led tributes to McCourt, describing him as a great New York writer who captured the heart of the city.