Malachy McCourt
Malachy McCourt was born in Brooklyn, USA and from the age of three was raised in Limerick, Ireland. A very undistinguished academic career plus the need to eat led him to leave school at the age of thirteen to begin work in Ireland and England as a laborer. He returned to the land of his birth at the age of twenty and again worked at the manual tasks such as longshoreman, truck loader and dishwasher, until he became an actor. That career took him to Broadway and Off-Broadway and regional theatres in plays such as Mass Appeal, DA, The Hostage, Inherit the Wind, Carousel, and Translations. The soap operas such a Ryan's Hope, Search for Tomorrow, and One Life to Live were also a good source of work and sustenance as were the movies Molly Maguires, She's the One, The Devils Own, Green Card, and TV movies such a You Can't Go Home Again and the Dain Curse. Other screencredits include Happy Hour, Guru of Sex, Gods and Generals, The Last Run, and Ash Wednesday plus a running part in the HBO prison series Oz.
In the early seventies, a lively and controversial time of his life, he was one of the first radio talk show hosts on WMCA-NYC, and he was a frequent guest on The Tonight Show, Merv Griffin and Tom Snyder shows. Along with the above, Mr. McCourt has been credited with founding the first singles bar in America, Malachy's of Third Avenue.
As well as co-authoring the play A Couple of Blaguards with his brother Frank, Mr. McCourt has written his own New York Times bestseller memoir, A Monk Swimming, published by Hyperion Press. His most recent memoir, Singing My Him Song, now out in paperback, is published by Harper Collins. Mr. McCourt's new books are: Danny Boy, a history of the song "Danny Boy"; Voices of Ireland, an anthology of Irish literature; History of the Claddheh Ring; a book of affirmations; Harold B Thy Name; and Death Need Not Be Fatal, a hilarious and often poignant look at life and death. Mr. McCourt writes a column, "Sez I to Myself," that appears in the Manhattan Spirit, The Westsider, and Our Town in NYC.
Mr. McCourt is happily married to his wife Diana, has five grown children, and is grandfather to three. He owes a great deal to his friend Bill W.