Angela's Ashes

Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 1996

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-3

Chapters 4-6

Chapters 7-9

Chapters 10-11

Chapters 12-13

Chapters 14-15

Chapters 16-19

Key Figures

Themes

Index of Terms

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Chapters 1-3Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 1 Summary

The narrative begins when Frank is four and in Limerick, not in New York City where he was born. It is the 1930s, and Limerick in the winter is wet, damp, and disease-ridden. Frank’s father, Malachy McCourt, is a man from Antrim in the north of Ireland. He grew up in trouble with the Irish and English, and it was rumored that he was in the Old IRA until he had to escape from the authorities. Frank’s mother is Angela Sheehan; she is from Limerick and named for the Angelus that rang the midnight hour when she was born on New Year’s Eve. Angela grew up poor with her two brothers, Pat and Thomas, and her sister, Aggie. Her mother provided her with the fare to travel to America and soon after arriving, she met Malachy.

Angela’s cousins, Delia and Philomena are religiously devout and upright and confront Malachy Sr. about Angela’s “interesting condition”—a euphemism for pregnancy. The pair accuses Malachy of being Presbyterian, which they say accounts for the sinful act of conceiving a child out of wedlock, and they intimidate him into marriage with Angela. Malachy considers escaping to California, but he drinks away the money he could have used to travel.

Frank is born, and his parents name him after St. Francis of Assisi. His baptism is a comedy of errors brought about by Malachy’s drunkenness: Malachy challenges the priest to a fight; Frank is dropped into the baptismal font; Malachy is upset at the priest for joking that Frank is a Protestant because he was submerged in the baptismal water entirely (as some Protestant sects are). Nearly a year after the baptism, Frank’s brother, also named Malachy, is born. He looks like Angela while Frank looks more like his father and has the “odd manner” of a man from the “North of Ireland” (i.e., Northern Ireland). Angela and Frank again conceive, and she gives birth to the twins, Oliver and Eugene. During Frank’s early childhood, the ups and downs of his father’s employment status and his penchant for drinking away his wages cause the family hardship.

Soon, a daughter, Margaret, is born. Malachy is highly protective of her, which shows a different side of the man who is often staggering drunk and singing patriotic songs. Dad even quits drinking so that he can be a better father to Margaret. However, Margaret dies at seven weeks old. Both parents are devastated, which leads them to neglect the four boys. Delia and Philomena learn of the neglect and write Angela’s mother asking for money to send the family back to Ireland. When they receive it, they return via ship back to Limerick. Frank is four years old.

Chapter 2 Summary

The family lands in Donegal and stays a short time at Malachy’s parents’ home. The home is too small, so the family sets off for Dublin. Malachy’s father told him to see a man named Heggerty, who will have money for him—compensation for Malachy’s service in the IRA—but Malachy gets nothing. The family relies on the charity of others until they can travel to Limerick, where Angela’s mother (“Grandma”) lives. She is a grumpy woman who takes an immediate dislike to Malachy. There is no room in Grandma’s home either, especially with Aunt Aggie (Angela’s sister) also living there since she left her husband temporarily. The family finds a flat on Windmill Street and soon discover a flea infestation in the bedding and mattress (all six sleep in the same bed). While Dad is outside pounding the mattress, Pa Keating (Aggie’s husband) appears and tells a rambling story about fleas, which he claims the English brought to Ireland.

Outside the Saint Paul De Vincent Society, Angela and the boys meet a fiery woman named Nora who, hearing from the society’s director (Mr. Quinlivan) that she won’t be getting boots for her children, threatens to go to the Quakers for charity. This guilts Quinlivan into giving her the boots. Angela receives a docket for food, and Nora escorts her to McGrath’s a grocery shop to ensure she isn’t ripped off. Nora catches McGrath cheating the scale for flour and plays on the woman’s devout Catholicism to extort candy and a couple of cigarettes.

Oliver becomes gravely sick and dies. The family mourns the death, and Angela decides they must move out of their flat, as it reminds her too much of Oliver. Their new home is near a school, Leamy National, which both Malachy Jr. and Frank begin attending. On his first day, Frank fights with another student and receives a harsh punishment from the teacher.

Eugene struggles to understand that Oliver has died, and eventually he also becomes ill with pneumonia and passes away. This leaves the family devastated. Angela begins taking medicine to relieve the grief; Malachy’s medicine is alcohol. With the help of Grandma, the family gives Eugene a proper burial.

Chapter 3 Summary

Much like after Oliver’s death, Angela has a hard time remaining in the place where Eugene died, so the family moves again to Roden Lane. The family settles in but soon finds out the place is a disaster: It is prone to flooding, and their kitchen is next to the lavatory that the entire lane uses. Christmas arrives and the boys go with their mom to McGrath’s to buy food and other provisions. They purchase a pig’s head for their dinner, and the shopkeeper gives them some sausages out of charity. It is a quiet and miserable Christmas, but the family spends it together, and Malachy is not drunk.

Another newborn—Michael—arrives. Malachy tries to repair the boys’ boots by hammering scraps of an old bike tire to the soles. He gets a job at a cement factory in Limerick, which excites the family (especially Angela because now they will be able to afford necessities like blankets and decent food. The first payday comes around, and Malachy does not return from the factory. Instead, as he often has, he uses his wages to go get drunk. When he returns home, the family turns on him. Even the boys refuse his offer of a penny, and Angela makes him sleep downstairs on a chair. The next morning, Malachy oversleeps and loses his job, putting the family back on the dole again.

Chapters 1-3 Analysis

The misery the McCourt family experiences in New York City and Limerick dominates these opening chapters. The scenes take place during the Depression, when work and wages were both scarce—even in America, which Angela, like many Irish people historically and throughout the memoir, views as the land of opportunity. She arrives rather hopeful, but after meeting Malachy, her fate takes a dramatic turn. Angela grew up poor, and her decision to elope with Malachy dooms her to remain impoverished. The loss of several children makes the family’s misery and squalor even more unbearable. After Margaret dies, the parents are so distraught that they neglect their living children, necessitating intervention. The family returns to Ireland—a voyage paid for by Angela’s mother. This return is the inverse of Angela’s trip to New York: a sign of an abysmal failure and solidifies her fate of a life in poverty.

That Malachy is from Northern Ireland is a very prominent and important fact in the book, tainting the way his fellow countrymen and women view him. The 20th-century conflict between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland has a long history centering on religious differences and national allegiance: Northern Ireland had (and has) a large population of English-descended Protestants and desired to stay in the United Kingdom, while most of the rest of Ireland was Catholic and remained resentful of English rule and those supportive of it even after gaining independence. Although Malachy is a patriotic man who once fought for the Irish Republican Army, the fact that he is from Northern Ireland breeds distrust. This leads to the debacle at Frank’s baptism: Malachy overreacts to the priest’s joke because he perceives it as questioning his faith and his loyalty to Ireland. When he returns to Ireland and settles in Limerick, he endures discrimination, and is treated with contempt by nearly everyone. His “odd manner” as a man from the North is an obstacle that adds to his difficult circumstances.

McCourt also establishes Malachy’s drinking problem in the opening chapters. The cycle of substance abuse and its effects on loved ones is a central theme of McCourt’s story. The tone of the narrative when recalling Malachy’s payday binges is matter-of-fact; there is a sense of frustration (especially from Angela) that ripples under the surface, but McCourt does not offer a moral condemnation. The reader is left to make their own judgments about Malachy’s actions, even as Malachy spends what little money he has on drink rather than food for his children.