The Hanging of Malachy McCourt Draws Hundreds

Normally a street corner naming might attract a few friends and family and a some local political leaders. Not so with Malachy McCourt, a bestselling author, a soap opera mainstay in his younger days, a radio co-host in his sunset years, a bar owner of some note, a one-time candidate for governor on the Green Party ticket and generally all-around raconteur.

Several hundred turned out for McCourt. A huge poster showed McCourt as the “passenger” on the back seat of a horse-drawn carriage driven down W. 93rd St. by Christina Hanson, the spokesperson for the embattled horse-drawn-carriage industry. It was silent testimony that McCourt was on the side of the carriage-horse industry. Leading the carriage down to the intersection with West End Ave. was retired NYPD Emerald Society piper Al Gonzalez, accompanied by Mary Courtney, strumming on a Bodhran drum.

McCourt died on March 11, 2024 at the age of 92, the last of seven McCourt siblings, and his daughter Siobhan began a campaign to get the street where he lived for 59 years and raised a family with his beloved wife Diana on the corner of West 93rd and West End Avenue renamed in his honor.

After a brief introduction by John McDonagh, who co-hosted McCourt a Sunday morning talk show “Radio Free Eireann” on WBAI, he called the man who goes by the name of Reverend Billy to the mic. Rev. Bill is a character played by Bill Talen, a performance artist who is the self-proclaimed head of the Church of Stop Shopping, and who advocated on many social justice causes over the years with McCourt. He proclaimed Malachy the patron saint of atheists in his church. (McCourt when asked his religion, would always reply, “I’m an atheist, thank God.”)

In addition to his bestselling book, “A Monk Swimming,” McCourt had written two others, “Singing My Hymn Song” and “Death Need Not be Fatal.”

It was the cover of the final book that the Rev. Billy called the crowd’s attention to. “Malachy is on the cover, telling a joke from the coffin. And then he’s laughing at his own joke. And we laugh along with him, because he was such a good laugher.”

Kate Mulgrew recalled that she met Malachy “on my first day at “Ryan’s Hope,” a soap opera where McCourt had a recurring role as a bartender. It was the beginning of a lifelong friendship.

“Of all the honors this great city can bestow on its citizens, to name a street after you is just about the greatest one of all,”said Laurie Gwen Shapiro who had made two documentaries on the family, “The McCourts of Limerick City” and The McCourts of New York City.” She’s also the author of the recently published book from Random House “The Aviator and the Showman: Amelia Earhart, George Putnam, and the Marriage that Made an American Icon.

She said she first encountered the McCourts while she was a student at Stuyvesant High School, where Malachy’s older brother Frank was a teacher before he went on to write the Pulitzer Prize winning memoir “Angela’s Ashes.” Frank and Malachy put on the play, A Couple of Blaggards,” which they co-wrote.

“And for those who don’t know who he was—and there are very few—but there will be strangers, there will be foreigners crossing from there to there, and they’ll look up, Malachy McCourt Lane, and they’ll carry on,” said “And as they carry on, they’ll carry on with him. So he’ll go with them wherever they go. And that’s the legacy of this great man.”

Tom Allon, a one-time editor of the West Side Spirit who went on to found City & State, was on the scene. He is in the final stages of compiling a book on the collected columns of older brother Frank McCourt and Malachy McCourt. Malachy was a regular columnist of the Spirit for four years, while Frank was a contributor although less frequently.

Malachy McCourt, the son, took the mic and said when he was born he was Malachy McCourt III. Then Malachy McCourt II. “Now I’m just Malachy McCourt.” And he has every intention of using the new address of Malachy McCourt Lane on his driver’s license. ”I can’t wait for the next time I’m pulled over,” he said. “Where are our friends from the NYPD? When they ask me my name, I’ll say, ‘Malachy McCourt.’ Address? ‘Malachy McCourt Lane.’ ”

Another son, Connor McCourt, said at one time his father, who was between jobs himself, was giving Connor career advice. “Why should I take career advice from you?” Connor asked. To which Malachy replied, “You might as well take my advice because at the moment, I’m not using it.” It was Connor who was a driving force behind the two McCourt documentaries with Laurie Gwen Shapiro.

NYS Assembly Member Linda Rosenthal was on the scene as was UWS Council member Gale Brewer. Brewer had announced at the memorial service at Symphony Space in June 2024, that she was on board with proclaiming the street Malachy McCourt Way.

But it eventually became Malachy McCourt Lane. “Lane is a very rare designation in Manhattan, but it is very common in Ireland,” noted McDonagh.

In fact, he said, the only other street with a designation of “lane” in Manhattan is way downtown on Maiden Lane—and that dates back to the 1700s. So it is the second “lane” in Manhattan in over 425 years. [Maiden Lane was initially dubbed Maiden Path.]

McCourt was born in Brooklyn but at the age of 3, at the height of the Great Depression, the family moved back to Ireland, to a very poor section of Limerick City in a basement flat that they shared with rats and which had no indoor plumbing.
Several of his young siblings died in childhood and an alcoholic father abandoned them. In his 20s, Malachy returned to New York, reuniting with his brother Frank but the Irish brogue of his formative years stayed with him until he passed. And he never lost his sense of humor. He owned several bars, including the eponymously named Malachy’s, next to the Barbizon Hotel, where many young aspiring career girls stayed. And Malachy would often try to set them up with the many single guys. He liked to boast that Malachy’s was the city’s first great singles bar. He also owned the Bell’s of Hell in Greenwich Village, where future Irish folk/rock star Larry Kirwan who became the front man of Black 47 got his start.

Film maker and author Laurie Gwen Shapiro, who co-produced documentaries The McCourts of Limerick and The McCourts of New York for Cineplex also spoke glowingly of her time in Ireland and India with the families.

Despite Brewer’s early backing, the council member mentioned that getting a street naming past Community Board 7 is no easy matter. First, they told McCourt’s daughter Siobhan that it required 100 signatures of neighbors. Then when they had the 100, they were told that in the interim the board had passed new criteria requiring 300 signatures. (Remember this is the same Community Board that several months ago nixed naming a street near the Hudson River in honor of Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger of the Miracle on the Hudson, who landed a disabled airliner on the Hudson River on Jan. 5, 2009 with no loss of life.)

But there was no denying the McCourt connection to the UWS or to the city at large. T.J. English, author of The Westies, spoke up on his behalf as did Brendan Fay, the longtime LBGTQ activist who started the St. Patrick’s Day for All in Queens when the parade in Manhattan banned gay groups from marching under their own banners.

Fay said he asked Malachy to be grand marshal the first year, and Malachy recruited his two brothers, Frank and youngest brother, Alfie, to join as well. Even CB7 could not deny the credentials and ultimately passed the resolution that led to the designation of Malachy McCourt Lane on Sunday, Sept. 28.

As Reverend Billy noted, “Mourning him in one sense would be easier, because he was just such a lovely spirit. But mourning him in another sense is harder because it is tough to say goodbye to someone who was really good at living. And nobody was better at living than Malachy McCourt.”