The McCourt brothers

Below is a link to a picture of the McCourt brothers:


http://www.irishartscenter.org/images/mccourt-bros2-150x180.jpg

Top row left to right: Frank (R.i.P) and Malachy
Bottom row left to right: Alphonsus and Michael

Discussion director

In the last chapter, Frank is a little bit older, about eleven years old, and he is starting to realize that his father is an alcoholic and that what he is doing is wrong. He also adds that when he looks at his father drinking he sees the look Eugene had in his eyes when Oliver died.

Why do you think Franks views has changed suddenly towards his father? And why do you think Malachy Sr. Drinks excessively?

-Donna Wylie

Summarizer; Chapter 7

In this chapter, Angela gives birth to her fourth child a boy whom she names Alphonsus. Many family members give the famly money for baby Alphonsus, but of course Malachy Sr. goes to the pub and gets drunk with the money. Angela tells the boys to go to the pub to get Malachy Sr. but of course he refuses, and turns them away while the baby at home is starving. This is the first time in this book where Frank is feeling angry about his father, in previous chapters he would ignore those feelings and think of the times he sat on his father's lap in the morning and he would feel better.

Frank also starts to work for his Uncle Pat delivering paper, and one day delivers to this old man Mr. Timoney. Mr. Timoney is a lonely old man who beggs Frank to read to him since he is senile, and Frank does. Mr. Tomoney is also lonely because he is a buddhist, while mostly everybody in Limerick is a Catholic. One day his doy bites three people and he laughs, and is taken away to the crazy hospital for his behavior.

-Donna Wylie

Discussion Director

In chapter 6, Frank's classmate Fintan is described as a very feminine, religious boy who says he would like to become a saint when hes dead, who curls his hair, and also likes to dance. What do Frank and Paddy's feelings toward Fintan say about Limerick's attitude in the 1930's? Also, why do you think that Fintan did not give the boys food the second time they came to his house?

Please comment on what you think.

-Donna Wylie

Summarizer; Chapter 5 and 6

This chapter takes place within a three year time span, where Frank is seven, eight, and by the end of the chapter he is nine. Throughout the coarse of these years, Frank's mother makes Frank take up Irish dancing, and after the sentence where he mentions his age, he adds that his father is still out of work.

Also in this chapter, Angela wants Frank to become an Altar boy so that the Saint Vincet de Paul Society can see that they are good Catholics and give them more benefits. After Frank dresses up in the nicest clothes he has, and becoming the cleanest he can get he goes to the Church to become an Altar Boy only to be rejected because they are of lower status and because his father is from the North.

In chapter six Frank is now in fourth grade and has Mr. O'Neil as a teacher. Mr. O'Neil always brings an apple to class and peels it in front of the class as a tease, and gives the peels to the boy who is able to answer his hardest question. One day a particularly feminine boy, Fintan gets the apple peel and shares it with Frank and Paddy, which are grateful but embarrassed by this. Fintan later invites to boy over for lunch where they eat luxuriously; but the boys are scared of Fintan when he follows them to the bathroom and they think Fintan enjoys looking at them.

They are invited the next day, but are not given any food. As a result Paddy and Frank run to a nearby farm and drink milk straight from the cow's' utters, and steel apples from the trees. They are eventually chased out by farmers and Frank stays the night with Paddy's family, where Paddy's father is sick, and later dies that night. Frank is retrieved by his mother the next morning.

-Donna Wylie

Word Watcher

Saloons- a place for the sale and consumption of alcoholic drinks.

Lashings- an abundance; plenty

Pram- a flat-bottomed, snub-nosed boat used as a fishing vessel or tender for larger vessels

Weary- physically or mentally exhausted by hard work, exertion, strain, etc.; fatigued; tired

Prods- to poke or jab with or as if with something pointed

Maria Stefanidis

Word Watcher

Blather- foolish, voluble talk

Concoction- the act or process of concocting

Sacrilege- the violation or profanation of anything sacred or held sacred

Grim- stern and admitting of no appeasement or compromise

Immersion- baptism in which the whole body of the person is submerged in the water.

Maria Stefanidis