Malachy McCourt talks Limerick and getting kicked out of a hospice for not dying 'quick enough'

MALACHY McCourt, one of the more notable Limerick characters, spoke about being kicked out of a hospice for not dying fast enough on Brendan O’Connor’s RTÉ Radio One show.

Malachy has undertaken a lot in his 91 years dabbling in acting, writing, campaigning, politics, broadcasting and even owned a popular New York City pub at one point.

He said he was kicked out of a hospice for not dying quickly enough as is the “rule in America”.

“You get six weeks or six months, I forget,” he said on the radio show.

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“I didn’t die so they said ‘okay out you go’ I got the boot,” he added.

He was diagnosed “seven or eight years ago” with Inclusion Body Myositis (IBM) which is a rare condition and a muscular disease where your muscles “waste away”.

Malachy has more recently been diagnosed with cancer (prostate and skin).

“I’m a walking medical miracle, still alive but not walking,” he laughed.

Malachy was born in the United States but was raised in Limerick. His brother Frank won a Pulitzer Prize for his account of his childhood in Limerick called Angela’s Ashes.

He mentioned that life in Limerick was “quite miserable” growing up.

“What saved us was the library coming to Limerick, we couldn’t imagine all the books in it,” Malachy said and spoke about how he got kicked out of the local library as a child.

He humoured how his library days finished when a classmate asked could he read a book Malachy was about to return to the library.

The next day his classmate said the book was stolen and that’s how he got kicked out of the library.

“Seventy years later I brought them a book to replace the one that had been taken years ago. They were hysterical laughing at the whole thing. They made me a lifetime member of the Limerick library after the whole thing,” he laughed.

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He also spoke about his friendship with Richard Harris and how growing up the two would have been from a completely different class background.

“The likes of me wouldn’t be allowed in where they were,” Malachy said about where Harris lived in Limerick.

The two met years later in New York where they became friends and travelled around Europe together.

At the end of the interview, Malachy wished the “best to Limerick” before ending the call with Brendan O'Connor.