Summary
Upon their arrival in Ireland, the McCourt family goes
to Malachy’s parents in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. Grandpa
seems considerate of Angela, but Grandma greets her son’s family
coldly; Frank’s aunts only nod when introduced to their brother’s
family. Grandma tells her son that there is no work in Ireland,
and Grandpa advises him to go to the IRA and
ask for money in recognition of his service.
The next morning, the family takes a bus to Dublin. Frank’s father
points out Lough Neagh, the lake where Cuchulain used to swim. Upon
arriving in Dublin, Malachy takes Frank to the office of a man in
charge of IRA pension claims. The man refuses
to give the McCourts any money, saying he has no record of Malachy’s
service. After Malachy asks for enough money for a pint, the man
refuses to give him even enough money for bus fare home. Night has
fallen, and the family sleeps in a local police barracks, where
the kind police and their prisoners joke with the children. The
next day, the sergeant’s wife tells Angela that the police have
raised a collection to pay for the McCourts’ train fare to Limerick.
Frank’s father shows Frank a statue of Cuchulain outside Dublin’s
General Post Office.
Frank’s family receives another stony welcome when they
arrive in Limerick, this time from Grandma, Angela’s mother. Angela’s
sister, Aunt Aggie, is living with her mother because she has had
a fight with her husband, Pa Keating. The next day, Grandma helps
the McCourts find a furnished room on Windmill Street. The family must
share one mattress, but they are grateful for it after nights of sleeping
on floors. That night, however, they discover that the mattress
is infested with fleas.
A few days later, Angela has a miscarriage and must go
to the hospital. Malachy finds out that his dole is only nineteen
shillings a week; to supplement that money, Angela goes to the St.
Vincent de Paul Society for charity. Although the other women waiting
for money are initially suspicious of Angela, with her American
coat and Yankee children, they warm to her after she tells them
of the loss of her baby. Angela receives a docket for groceries
and befriends a kind, funny woman named Nora Molloy. Nora accompanies Frank’s
mother to the grocery store to make sure the saleswoman does not
cheat Angela. The two women sit outside smoking cigarettes while
Nora tells Angela about her husband, “Peter Molloy, champion pint
drinker.”
Soon Frank’s one-year-old brother Oliver becomes ill,
and his parents take him to the hospital. Grandma takes Frank and
his brothers, Malachy and Eugene, to their Aunt Aggie’s, where the boys
eat porridge. Uncle Pa holds Malachy on his knee, a sight that makes
Aggie cry, because she has no children of her own. The children
return home to find that Oliver has died. At his brother’s burial,
Frank throws stones at the jackdaws that perch on trees all around
the burial site. The next day, Frank’s father spends all of his dole
money on drink.
The McCourt family moves into a room on Hartstonge Street. Angela
shames her husband by collecting his dole from the Labour Exchange
to prevent him from drinking it away, and Frank and Malachy start
school. The narrator describes Leamy’s National School as a hard
place where you “must not cry” if you want to earn the respect of
your peers. Frank’s master in the fifth class is called Mr. O’ Dea,
a man who can always wring tears from his students.
