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PRESS RELEASEFROM: TREATY STONE PUBLISHING.ASHES POUR FROM LIMERICK LANES TO CYBERSPACEAmerican e-book publishing giants Greatunpublished.com have this week launched the electronic edition of Limerickman Gerard Hannan's controversial national bestseller ASHES' which was written and published in response to Frank McCourt's international multi-million sales ANGELA'S ASHES.According to Kathy Lindenmayer, Assistant Editor at Greatunpublished, I can say unequivocally that Mr. Hannan is the first Irish author whose book is for sale globally as both an e-book and paperback title and we are very excited and thrilled about the launch.Hannan, who is about to embark on a short American promotional tour opening with a speaking engagement at the College Of Charleston in October has confirmed his excitement at the prospect of global sales for his book.Since the outset of my campaign to have the other side of Frank McCourt's story told I have never dreamed that an opportunity like this would come along,' he said this week.Hannan is also hoping that his second book TIS IN ME ASS' will also become available at Greatunpublished later this month.ASHES is available in paperback or electronic form at http://www.greatunpublished.com ENDSCONTACTS:Gerard HannanLimerick: 061 315668Mobile: 087 4186081Kathy Lindenmayer (Assistant Editor)Greatunpublished.comUSA " 001 -8435790000____________________________________________FURTHER INFORMATION:What other papers have had to say on this debate:There was an old town...By Paul Daffey /Evening StandardTwo families were feuding over ascendancy in the drug trade. A member of one family was walking along a footpath when a car sidled up to the kerb. A member of the opposing family jumped out of the car and stabbed the pedestrian in the stomach - with a pitchfork.The weapon of choice threw a rural twist on an urban tale. It was emblematic of an Ireland that, in the final decades of last century, was wrangling with itself over the shift from rural backwater to urban dynamism.The pitchfork incident could have taken place in Dublin or Cork, maybe even the light-spirited Galway, but somehow this seemed unlikely. Right or wrong, it did suggest merit behind Limerick's reputation as Stab City.It is a reputation that Limerick hates, largely because it is distasteful, but also because the sobriquet was applied 30 years ago and the city has changed since then.In the '70s, the development of high-tech industries and the University of Limerick, which specialises in science and technology, brought a measure of wealth and vitality to the city. But it also created an income gap, with residents of rugged housing estates resenting the new order.Crime and violence were the inevitable result. The rest of the country gained the impression that stabbings were frequent. It titillated some to think of Limerick, with its reputation for inwardness and pious Catholicism, as a bloody frontier.Violence in Limerick lessened in the '90s after, among other things, the formation of "combat poverty" groups with funds from the European Union. EU money was also put towards restoration of the town's fading buildings.The Civic Trust, formed in the late '80s as the first restoration body in Ireland, was instrumental in giving the worn city a facelift that impressed the rest of the country, although not enough to stop the stabbing slurs and the tittering. Limerick is proud of its recovery but, after years of scorn, it is defensive. When the Angela's Ashes phenomenon broadcast the city's folly to the world, it became too much for some.Frank McCourt's depiction of the squalor in the city by the River Shannon in the 1930s and '40s raised the hackles of one resident so much that he bothered to write a retort. Ashes, Gerard Hannan's memoir of a rosier childhood in Limerick, has hardly set sales records but the author considers its publication a success.Described disparagingly in the Limerick Post as a bookseller and part-time disc jockey, Hannan was reported in that newspaper as saying that Angela's Ashes should be reclassified as fiction."I think it has been a successful campaign because there are people out there now saying this (the book) is not 100 per cent accurate. This is the object of the exercise, so mission accomplished."His crusade also includes talkback sessions on his radio program. A good percentage of callers support his sunny view of the city's past. The dissenters, according to the Limerick Post, get cut off, an act the newspaper describes on its website as that of a schoolyard bully. The fact that he only polled 65 votes in recent local elections only adds to their scorn."He can hardly be said to represent the views of the people of Limerick," the Post says. "While he accuses McCourt of holding up our city of the past to ridicule and condemnation, he, in the guise of being Limerick's champion, is only exposing our modern-day Limerick to mockery."Frank Larkin, the public relations officer for Shannon Development, says half the city claims the poverty in the book is exaggerated. "People felt it reflected poorly. They claim they had happy childhoods and were happy in Limerick. You have that dichotomy of discussion. But there's certainly a contrast between what Frank McCourt described and today."He says Alan Parker, the creator of the Angela's Ashes movie, barely filmed in Limerick because the city now lacks the requisite decay. "We weren't able to come up with any of those buildings and lanes because there weren't any left. They had to go to Dublin and Cork to find rundown buildings and derelict lanes...nothing against the people of Dublin and Cork." Larkin is unable to put a figure on Angela's Ashes importance to the city, although he admits it has become a huge selling point. Other attractions include castles, cathedrals, Georgian architecture, the Limerick Expo in March and the International Marching Bands Festival, also in March, which attracts 40,000 people.The city's push - and for that matter Ireland's push - to improve the poor quality of mid-range restaurants has spawned the International Food Festival, which is held annually, and the Good Food Circle of Restaurants. We tried only the Mogul Emperor in Henry Street, where the food was much like Indian food anywhere in the Western world.Limerick might be trying to improve its culinary standing but it has no doubts about its sporting prowess. The city thumps its chest about being Ireland's sporting capital. It is, at best, a dubious claim, but one that receives support every autumn when Limerick hosts the battles between Munster and touring rugby sides from the Antipodes. Munster, the province that takes in the six counties in Ireland's south-west, attacks the touring teams with a fervor that inevitably attracts "Gael force" headlines. In 1978, the attack was so effective that Munster defeated New Zealand, a feat that was barely believed across Europe, and less so in New Zealand. The victory remains an Irish side's only win over the All Blacks and it is not surprising that each player was guaranteed free pints for life.At a humbler level, Limerick soon will be the home of Ireland's first 50-metre swimming pool. In recent years it has hosted the World Medical Games and the UK and Ireland Corporate Games. The World Soccer Cup for Lawyers is also on the list of achievements, although it must be said a city is trying too hard when it celebrates playing host to thousands of lawyers.The city has every right, however, to claim a rich history. Its city charter, drawn up in 1197, is the oldest in the British Isles, which includes Ireland and Britain, and King John's Castle is a feature of the Heritage Precinct. The castle, built at the beginning of the 13th century, was the stronghold of the British empire in western Ireland and its presence is a reminder of Limerick's struggles under a hated foreign power. The Heritage Precinct also includes the Castle Lane project, which is the reconstruction of a street from two centuries ago.Downriver are the docks, which are undergoing a makeover not seen since the Vikings sailed up the Shannon in the ninth century. A handful of pubs in the city centre have also been refurbished. Some are modern and gleaming, but I preferred those with a traditional touch, such as WJ South's on O'Connell Street. South's is where Uncle Pa Keating bought the 16-year-old Frank McCourt his first pint. It looks like your average poky Irish pub from the street but opens out generously inside. It was a local for the men from the lanes of Limerick; now the clientele ranges from young professionals to older regulars. The floorboards and de{AAC}cor have been tastefully scrubbed up and Pa Keating would probably wonder where all the sawdust on the floor had gone. The bulldust, though, remains as thick on the ground as ever.The Limerick banter is fun. Wit and irony are staples and all sentences are delivered with a delightful lilt. The accent is less distinctive than the sing-song carry-on in neighboring Cork but, since the publication of Angela's Ashes, the language of Limerick is among the most distinctive in the world. Which, if anyone were in any doubt, just goes to show that the pen is mightier than the pitchfork. Struggles of the artistWhen you're Jewish, Irish or Palestinian,The question of identity is a troubling one.Gary Younge /Guardian Newspaper Josephine is on line four."You alright Ger?" she calls out to Limerick's late night radio DJ Gerard Hannan. She doesn't need to say who she is. Hannan recognises her voice. Like Whispering Phyllis, Giggling Breeda, Peg, who sings a song over the phone once a week, and Jim from Oola, who likes to play the listeners tunes from his gramophone, Josephine is a regular who punctuates Limerick's late-night airwaves with local banter. It is the night of the premiere of the film, Angela's Ashes, the Pulitzer prize winning story of Frank McCourt's impoverished childhood in Limerick, and Josephine is in the mood for reminiscing. Josephine says she used to play bingo with Angela and she cannot recognise her in the wan character portrayed in the book. "She had big, fat jaws and her body was as fat as mine," she says. "I'm the same age as Frank McCourt and I don't remember cobblestones or anything like that." And so it goes on, all night, most nights. With Hannan's encouragement - he has already made a name and is fast making a career out of criticising the book - Limerick's older citizens call to complain that their story has not been told. "Poverty is nothing to be ashamed of but he has misrepresented the innocent people of this town," says Hannan. McCourt was born in America, came to Limerick as a young boy and left for the States as a young man. "He came here from America, he didn't like it and then he left. But a lot of people stayed and made a life there and there was a great spirit that is not reflected in Angela's Ashes which is the fruit of bitterness and begrudgery. When they [the older citizens of Limerick look back on their childhood they did not see themselves as miserable, Irish Catholics. It's a beautifully written book. But it's not about the real Limerick. My problem with it is that he should have called it what it was: a work of fiction." But this is more than a battle between fact and fiction. Some accuse McCourt of straying from the truth by exaggerating his impoverished upbringing in the lanes; but even more are annoyed by the fact that he remained too faithful to real life by putting local people's real names in the book and relating accounts of his mother's sex life. Many will argue, in the same sentence, that he was both too honest and not honest enough. What is at stake here is the question of authenticity. It is a faultline that goes beyond the pages of Angela's Ashes and the streets of Limerick to the arbitrary codes and signifiers which define identity. It is the yardstick we use to determine who is and who is not eligible for inclusion in the panoply of tribes which are available to us such as class, religion, race, ethnicity and region. It provides the parameters for describing who we are, and often what we can say. The consequences of these issues are far from academic. In Israel a debate is raging over who, for purposes of immigration, qualifies as a Jew. When the country's law of return was passed in 1950, anyone with even one Jewish grandparent had an automatic right to Israeli citizenship. Now that people of Jewish descent are pouring in from eastern Europe there is a move afoot to redefine what it is to be a Jew. "These are not people who are suffering from anti-semitism or who have any connection to the Jewish people," said Yuli Edelstein, the deputy speaker of the Knesset. If they do change the rules it could mean that people who were sufficiently Jewish to be gassed by the Nazis will not be Jewish enough to enter Israel. You can hear it in John Prescott's tortured accounts of his own social standing. A few years ago, when he was deputy leader of the opposition, he provoked great intrigue by describing himself as "middle class". Last year, when he was on a higher salary and wielding greater power as deputy prime minister, he had returned to the toiling masses. "Make no mistake about it. I'm proud of being working class," he says. "I'm not changing my attitude or culturing my voice or even getting my grammar correct." Last year, critics of the intellectual Edward Said raised doubts about his credentials as a refugee as a means of trying to discredit his entire body of work on the Middle East. "I had never had much respect for the intellectual integrity of Professor Said," said a spokesman for the former rightwing Israeli government. "This proves that my suspicions were not groundless." The attack put Said in the Kafkaesque situation of brandishing documents to prove that he is in fact who he has always said he was. But there was more at stake, he believed, than his own integrity. "It is an attempt," said Said, "to pre-empt the process of return and compensation for the Palestinians. It is a way of furthering the argument that the Palestinians never belonged in Palestine... If someone like Edward Said is a liar, runs the argument, how can we believe all those peasants who say they were driven off their land?... It is part of the attempt to say that none of this actually happened." Undermine Said's authenticity, went the logic, and you undermine the credibility of the Palestinian cause. And so it goes on. To have had the real Limerick experience you have to have stayed; to be truly Jewish you must have suffered from anti-semitism; to be working class you need bad grammar. Each assertion reveals an attempt to establish the idea that identities are fixed, universal and cohesive when in fact they are fluid, varied and disparate. None of which is to say that the complaints about Angela's Ashes are not understandable. McCourt has dismissed his detractors' complaints by insisting that Angela's Ashes is "a memoir, not an exact history". But, since the lives of Limerick's working class rarely make it to the international stage, it is not unreasonable for them to want to see themselves portrayed accurately and sensitively. It is a constant irritation to those on the margins that they are often ill-represented by those who make it into the mainstream. "We who survived the camp are not true witnesses," wrote Primo Levi of his time in a Nazi concentration camp. "We, the survivors, are not only a tiny but an anomalous minority. We are those who through prevarication, skill or luck never touched bottom. Those who have, and have seen the face of the Gorgon, did not return, or returned wordless." The burden of representation on those who do emerge from desperate circumstances is a heavy one. But that is no excuse to try to deny the validity of their voice. In the case of Angela's Ashes there is, of course, no such thing as the Limerick experience but, instead, several Limerick experiences. Nobody voted for McCourt so he is under no obligation to represent anyone. The story that McCourt told is not Limerick's but his own.Angela's Ashes Rakes Up A StormAlex Renton/London Time OutThere's a cruel joke going round Limerick about the movie that's toopen in the city next Wednesday. "Worse than the film of an ordinarymiserable childhood is the film of a miserable Irish childhood, andworse yet is the film of the miserable Irish Catholic childhood."This will mean little to anyone who has not read Frank McCourt'sAngela's Ashes, but the millions who have ploughed through the1990s' best-selling example of tears 'n' smiles Irish ghettoliterature will spot the parody of the book's first paragraphs.Some people in Limerick are utterly fed up with Angela's Ashes andits story of the McCourt children who lived in the city's slums(excepting those who died in the family's communal bed) in themiddle of this century. There are those who don't believe FrankMcCourt's memoir, and those, such as Brendan Halligan, editor of theLimerick Leader, who wish Angela, the Ashes and everyone else wouldjust go away. The book is a ghost haunting modern Limerick life: "Itovershadows everything."Arguments over the veracity of McCourt's account have, in the threeyear's since publication, caused endless fuss. The Limerick Leaderis well-used to receiving letters that point out flaws in theMcCourt children's saga, and the filming has touched nerves again."Frank McCourt's book," said a recent editorial wearily, "generatedmore controversy in Limerick than anything since the opening of theinterpretative centre in King John's Castle." And that was more thansix years ago.Nearly 200 Limerick people have undertaken to demonstrate outsidethe screening, in defence of their city's good name. That's hardlysurprising - for Limerick, her cruel streets, hard-heartedshopkeepers and hypocritical clergy, is the chief villain, the primechild abuser of Angela's Ashes.Brendan Halligan says: "It is difficult to understand how a gloomy,depressing and backward look at a make-believe Limerick wouldnecessarily show today's real Limerick in a kindly light," he wrote,opposing the campaign to get the film to come home. "Good riddanceto it."There's no question that Limerick has changed since McCourt's day.The Irish boom and economic aid from Brussels have seen the city'sslums transformed - indeed the city is quite proud that AlanParker's team were unable to find a suitable tenement "lane" forfilming in Limerick, (they had to build their own slum in a car parkin Dublin instead). John O'Regan, who organises Angela's Ashes toursat 4-a-head for fans who arrive weepily from across the world,enjoys showing off the business centre and apartment blocks that nowdominate the old red-light district of the Shannon docks. EvenSutton's Coalyard, outside which Angela and her sons scavenged forfuel, is now Jury's Inn, a "posh" hotel.But it is not the fact that Parker and McCourt's Limerick malignstoday's Limerick that will cause the demonstrations outside theDooradoyle Omniplex on Wednesday. Those will be staged by the peoplewho simply don't believe the story told in Angela's Ashes. "A fewfanatics and self-publicists" is how sensible Limerick dismissesthem (though sensible Limerick asks not to be named - it's a smallcity). But the anti-McCourtists include men who were at school withMcCourt. Men like Paddy Malone, who, when Frank McCourt returned toLimerick for a book-signing, asked the author if he remembered himand then ripped the book in half, shouting: "You're a disgrace toIreland, the Church and your mother." Malone is now threatening tosue McCourt.There is, in fact, a mini-industry in getting at Frank McCourt. Twocontemporaries have published their own accounts of their happierLimerick childhoods, while a local bookshop owner and disc-jockey,Gerard Hannan, has published Ashes - a "true story of two brothersgrowing up in the Limerick Lanes". Next week he will publish asequel to that book, just as McCourt has published 'Tis, his ownsequel to Angela's Ashes. The new book is cheekily titled 'Tis in MeAss - authentic Limerick street slang, apparently. Hannan, whosehounding of McCourt has taken him from US TV news to Melvyn Bragg'sSouth Bank Show, says he is simply attempting to right a grievouswrong done to Limerick's reputation and history. "You will have beenled to understand that I am a two-headed lunatic," he says gravely."But there are hundreds of people behind me, and I have letters fromacross the world to prove it."Such disputes are part of the territory - an almost inevitableafter-effect of making money out of live history is that others whowere there too will stand up to argue about what really happened.And, of course, McCourt has many defenders. His editor atHarperCollins, Philip Gwyn Jones, follows the common argument thatMcCourt's story is a memoir, it doesn't claim to be autobiography.Behind the subjective reporting is greater truth. "People come up toFrank, who were either there, or knew someone who was at that timeAnd say, "Oh, Frank, you've got it all wrong: Mrs. So and so didn'tlive at number 7, it was number 5." Maybe he did get little factswrong, but it is a work of non-fiction, and he has written it astrue as he can remember. Of course we support Frank's interpretationas plausible and authentic. But the truth looks different to everydifferent pair of eyes. That's the nature of historical truth."The problem for the pro-McCourt camp is that their man's mistakesare just the one's that are likely to cause maximum offence amongthe people of Limerick, and the guardians of the truth. Queuing atthat Limerick book-signing was another contemporary from theLimerick Lanes, Willie Harold. Mr. Harold, now dead, appears in thebook at his first confession, telling a priest how he has sinned,looking at his sister's naked body. The problem is, Mr. Harold never had a sister. Many older Limerick people are incensed at theportrait of Angela herself. There's no doubt that Mrs. McCourt wouldnot like her son's portrayal. Shortly before she died, in 1981, shewas taken to see Frank and brother Malachy perform a stage showabout their early lives. She stormed out, shouting: "It didn'thappen that way. It's all a pack of lies."Other stories have emerged that throw doubt on McCourt'sreliability. The clergy of 1940s Limerick - where "you couldn'tthrow a brick without hitting a priest" - come particularly poorlyout of the book. Recently McCourt told the Los Angeles Times thatthe film-makers weren't allowed to use any of Limerick's churches,because local clergy, led by the Bishop of Limerick, opposed thefilm. When the Limerick journalists investigated this claim theyfound that only one church, that of the Redemptorists, had refusedto co-operate with filming. The Bishop's office had gone out oftheir way to help - a fact that the film's producer's confirmed.No one in Limerick denies that there was awful poverty in the city60 years ago, but further investigation has led them to wonder justhow poor the McCourts really were. Some people have pointed out howfat Angela and some of the children were, while the Limerick Leaderdug up photographs of McCourt in his boy scout's uniform. Scoutingwas expensive and usually for middle-class boys - "Is this thepicture of misery?" asked the newspaper.Perhaps the most sensible verdict comes from another Limerickcontemporary, a John Conran who lives now in Birmingham. He wrote tothe Limerick Leader after reading McCourt's book, to say how much hehad enjoyed it. " I lived in Limerick at the time. I had ninesisters and one brother. I did not feel all that misery. I enjoyedmy schooldays at St Munchin's CBS. We had the Shannon and the hillson our doorstep. The problem with the McCourts was not Limerick, theChurch or the priests. The father was an alcoholic. He failed in NewYork, the promised land. He would fail in any city - and did."John O'Regan, who on his Angela's Ashes tours daily watches peoplefrom all over the world weep as they remember the sufferings oftheir own childhoods, says he knows Frank McCourt was not lying."I've seen enough people to know that Frank spoke for all of them.What he wrote was his truth: Angela's Ashes is a mirror of thosetimes."Additional reporting by Gita MendisRising from the ashesAnne Molloy/Irish NewsFrank McCourt wrote in Angela's Ashes that there was only one thingworse than "a miserable Irish childhood" and that was "a miserableIrish Catholic childhood."It was such strong and ultimately disparaging statements that madeMcCourt's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel unforgettable and for it'sdetractors unforgivable.For the three years since its publication Angela's Ashes hascontinued to cause rancor in his childhood home of Limerick wherethere is a clear division between those who would like to pillorythe McCourts and those, like the former mayor, who want to give themthe freedom of the city."Lies, lies, lies, lies," decried one Paddy Malone, who attended thesame school as the young McCourt, and claimed that Frank"prostitutes his mother" in the book.Another self-appointed McCourt opponent is Radio Limerick presenterGerard Hannan who sees Angela's Ashes as a straightforward attack onthe city and its people and is publishing his own riposte Tis in MeAss' a play on McCourt's second autobiographical work Tis.'McCourt has at times tried to distance himself from the continuingrow and said that the book was not about the city "it was aboutpoverty."But that is too much of an oversimplification by the author as a lotof the anger from McCourt (and his younger brother Malachy) isdirected not at their alcoholic father but their downtrodden mother.McCourt implies that Angela takes the boys to live at her cousin'shome and sleeps with him in return for a roof over their heads whenMalachy finally deserts them, apparently for good.The adolescent Frank makes it clear (as does his brother Malachy inhis own autobiography A Monk Swimming) that he cannot deal with thesituation and it would appear that they never forgave their motherfor this (though this does not mean they didn't love her) and theyseem to have made their peace with their father before he died.To outsiders this seems strange because Malachy (Snr) would appearto have been at the root of most of the McCourt's difficulties oras one Limerick contemporary has pointed out "we were just as poorbut the difference was our father didn't drink."Malachy McCourt (portrayed by outstanding British actor RobertCarlyle in the film) was originally from Toome in Co Antrim and wasoften decried by his wife's family as the next best thing to aPresbyterian, particularly because of the way his hair stood up: "Hehad Protestant hair."He would be pleased to know that in some respects little has changedin the intervening 50 years as an article about the film in theLimerick Leader assured its readers recently."The specter that haunts Limerick is not that of Angela or any otherLimerick person but of her alcoholic Ulster husband."The geographical pinpointing of the source of the problem isrevealing in itself and goes a long way to rebuff the notion thatmodern Limerick is at peace with itself and its new found wealth.It's often the hurry to forget the bad memories of an impoverishedpast that reveals the insecurity of the nouveau riche.Many of the older generation in Limerick (as elsewhere in Ireland)are not keen to talk about the difficulties of past times and theyounger are too busy making money to care.As Frank McCourt said: "My mother hated me uncovering the past: theonly place for confessions is to a priest, she thought: she wantedcurtains drawn over all the poverty and sordidness."And he admitted that writing the book was "similar to cleaning outthe sewers, dredging up that stuff."But he didn't just sit down and write the book after he retired fromteaching in America, he was scribbling bits for years though hedidn't complete it sooner "because all those years I was too busymarking other people's essays. And the timing wasn't right. Mymother had to die and I think I had to grow up. And it took me along time."The fact that he waited until his mother's death before publicisingtheir life together at least indicates that McCourt was notindifferent to his mother's feelings despite what his detractorswould have us believe.When it came to filming Angela's Ashes last year in Limerick therewas some nervousness on the part of director Alan Parker, who wasaware of the vocal opposition in some parts of the city to the book."It's an exaggeration to say that there was enmity towards us makingthe film in the city where it is based, but I think it's fair to saythat there was some trepidation on our part, a feeling that we werenot entirely welcome but that could have been my own personalparanoia."Parker, in his personal diary of the filming, is however critical ofthe churches in Limerick who refused to let them film though headmits they were treated "cordially". Interior church scenes wereeventually filmed in Dublin and Parker does reveal the problems forChurches of having a "hundred film crew noisily go about theirbusiness particularly for a film which takes place in a periodbefore Vatican II."He also reveals the truism of the old adage of never working "withanimals or children" as Angela's Ashes involved working with dozensof children who portray not only the McCourts but theircontemporaries at different stage over a 15-year period."I have to say that these were the most difficult scenes I've everdirected with young children, and I've done a considerable amount offilming in this area. Although a shrieking child might be whatyou're after for the scene, you have to keep reminding yourself thatit's not just the illusion of film and that, close by, behind theset, stands the real mother of this small child, sufferingconsiderably herself as her offspring cries real tears for thecamera."Parker, who's numerous films include that other Irish-based successThe Commitments, however is generous in his praise of Newry actorMichael Legge who portrays Frank McCourt as an older adolescent."He has great subtlety and application and, as with all good actorswho make things look easy, there is a fierce intelligence at work."See you in court, McCourtFor local radio host/journalist and authorGerry Hannan 'Angela's Ashes' is a vicious slur on his cityRob Brown/The Guardian (UK)Frank McCourt must have done scores of interviews to plug 'Tis, thesequel to Angela's Ashes, his global bestseller about growing updirt poor in the priest-ridden, rain-sodden slums of Limerick. Butall these encounters put together could not have been anywhere nearas painful as the prime-time television appearance he made back inhis native Ireland recently.It wasn't Pat Kenny, host of The Late Late Show, who gave him a hardtime. The trouble came from a member of the Dublin studio audience."You have been peddling lies about Limerick," the man bellowed intothe microphone. "You are a liar, a self-confessed liar." McCourtcould only raise his arms to the heavens and appeal to his accuserin his strange but weirdly soothing mid-Atlantic accent: "I don'tknow why you're so obsessed with me. Why don't you get a life and goand do something?"His plea fell on deaf ears, for a large part of Gerry Hannan's lifeis now devoted to stirring up controversy around McCourt. Hispersonal crusade to "set the record straight" will crank up a gearnext week when the movie version of Angela's Ashes rolls on tocinema screens. Hannan, who combines local broadcasting with runninga second-hand bookshop in Limerick, has even penned two books asdirect ripostes to McCourt's memoirs. The first was called simplyAshes. The second, due for release next week, is even moreopportunistically entitled 'Tis In Me Ass, an expression straightfrom the language of the Lanes, the now notorious backstreets on thenorth side of Limerick where McCourt endured his miserable childhood.The main outlet for Hannan's literary vendetta isn't his books which will never rival their targets in the bestseller lists butthe late-night phone-in programme he presents on Limerick 95. Theradio station provides a regular platform for critics of McCourt,who seem to be both numerous and vocal in the author's native city.No one is getting terribly worked up about 'Tis, which tells ofyoung Frank's escape from Limerick to America and what he foundthere. Hannan's tribute to "the people who didn't run off to Americabut instead stayed at home to help build a city" doesn't packanywhere near the same animus as Ashes, which was a far more pointedattack on Angela's Ashes.According to his arch critic, McCourt's upbringing wasn't anywherenear as brutal as he makes out. "When you read Angela's Ashes, it'smisery, misery, misery all the way," says Hannan. "That's not how itis remembered by anyone else who lived there. Of course there was alot of poverty and suffering, but there was also a great spirit tothe place. People helped each other through the hard times." Forhim, the situation was best summed up by an elderly listener whocalled in to say: "Ger, everyone loves Frank McCourt except thepeople who knew him. And everyone loves Angela's Ashes except thepeople who know the truth."Angela's Ashes is a particularly searing account of the author'schildhood in the Lanes of Limerick, depicted as a living hell wherehe and his brothers (those who didn't die in the cot) begged forfood while neighbours looked on with cruel indifference and thelocal Catholic clergy humiliated the most wretched members of itsflock.The book, which won the 1997 Pulitzer prize for biography, beginswith this now famous opening passage: "When I look back on mychildhood I wonder how I survived it at all. It was, of course, amiserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while.Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irishchildhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood."Ger, as his fans affectionately address him, seems a bit of a localhero in Limerick. When we met up in the city's Bewley's caf(Dublin's famous coffee house has become a fast-growing chain),several people came up to tell him what a grand job he was doing orto alert him to some local injustice he should sort out on theairwaves. Hannan claims to have received a hero's welcome after hisshowdown with McCourt on The Late Late Show. "I think they wantedhis head brought back to Limerick on a plate," he recalled, beaming.He admits to having got a frostier reception at the University ofLimerick, which conferred an honorary degree on McCourt two yearsago. "I know it annoys the intelligentsia to see some littlegobshite stand up to the great author, but I'm only concerned aboutthe common people and they're on my side."Being only 40 himself, Hannan cannot draw upon his own experiencesto contradict McCourt's recollections of the 1940s, far less the1930s. But several of his relatives are contemporaries of McCourt,and it was they who first raised his suspicions about the book. Hislate uncle Martin, who went to school with Frank McCourt, fed him alot of the background information for Ashes, which was billed as"The real memoirs of two boys from the Limerick Lanes". PaddyHannan, his 74-year-old father, was particularly affronted byMcCourt's portrayal of his mother, Angela, whom he remembers as theangel of the Lanes. "He makes her out to be good-for-nothing. Anyonewho cuts their own mammy down like that deserves nothing."McCourt is also accused of scandalising the family of Teresa Carmodyby telling the world that he had sex with her just days before shedied of tuberculosis. McCourt maintains that she never existed andthat the name was made up.Such explanations have failed to silence his detractors, includingthose on the local newspaper The Limerick Leader. At one point itpublished a half-page of photographs showing McCourt as a member ofSt Joseph's Boy Scouts. Pointing out that this particular scouttroop was regarded as the Elite of Limerick, the headline asked: "Isthis the picture of misery?"McCourt, a handsome, snow-haired figure who penned his memoirs afterteaching for many years in New York high schools, tried to laugh offsuch assaults. "Begrudgers," he told the Boston Globe. "Where wouldIreland be without them?" He dismissed the complaints as"peripheral", describing Angela's Ashes as "a memoir, not an exacthistory". He has owned up to one falsehood. In the book, schoolmateWillie Harold is depicted walking to his first confession"whispering about his big sin, that he looked at his sister's nakedbody". Willie Harold never had a sister, a point he brought toMcCourt's attention when, in the advanced stages of cancer, hequeued at a book-signing to set the record straight. McCourt claimsto have settled the matter amicably by granting his old chum a freecopy. It is impossible to verify this, as Harold has since died.He'll have to do a lot more than sign a free copy to silence GerryHannan, who is plainly basking in the limelight of his vendetta. Inthe back office of his bookstore he has a fat file containing allthe stories his claims have generated on both sides of the Atlantic.He also got to vent his spleen on The South Bank Show when itprofiled Frank McCourt recently. Is he obsessive? Gerry Hannandoesn't think so. "I've got a lot of other things in my life, but Ido have a tremendous sense of loyalty to my listeners, who inundatedme for weeks and weeks with their heartfelt complaints about FrankMcCourt."Whatever, the feud will enter a new chapter as Alan Parker's film ofAngela's Ashes hits the screens. The producers of The Late Late Showwould doubtless be keen to stage a second bout. Whether McCourt willallow himself to be ambushed again is highly doubtful. Hannan, whowas carefully primed by an RTE researcher for his first everappearance on prime time television, is certainly up for a rematch."I don't just want to eyeball him in a television studio," Hannantold The Independent. "I want Frank McCourt to take me to court,where the truth about his book will come out for the whole world tosee."Limerick, Rising From 'Ashes'A bittersweet memoir is luring people to this once-grim Irish City.They're in for a surprise.By K.C. Summers/The Washington PostLimerick's Windmill Street is a postman's nightmare. Its small,two-story stucco row houses are numbered 25, 2, 41, 1, 42 . . .there are three No. 1's alone. But the house I'm looking for doesn'tseem to have a number at all. Painted pale yellow with a green door,its only distinctive feature is a stuffed Garfield the Cat stuck inthe upstairs window.It's an ordinary house in an ordinary city, so unexceptional that noone would give it a second glance. Yet millions of people know itintimately, because it's one of the places Frank McCourt, author ofthe best-selling memoir "Angela's Ashes," lived when he was growingup poor and desperate in the slums of Limerick, Ireland, during the1930s and '40s. This is what it was like on the McCourts' firstnight in this house:Dad and Mam lay at the head of the bed, Malachy and I at the bottom,the twins wherever they could find comfort . . . Then Eugene sat up,screaming, tearing at himself . . . when Dad leaped from the bed andturned on the gaslight we saw the fleas, leaping, jumping, fastenedto our flesh. We slapped at them and slapped but they hopped frombody to body, hopping, biting. We tore at the bites till they bled.We jumped from the bed, the twins crying, Mam moaning, Oh, Jesus,will we have no rest!It's hard to reconcile the misery depicted in McCourt's book withthat Garfield up in the window. But in a way, the stuffed cat saysit all. The terrible days of life in Limerick that McCourt wroteabout so eloquently is gone, and good riddance to them. Yet it's ameasure of how moving his book is -- and how much things havechanged in Ireland -- that people are coming back to Limerick to seehow it was.Frank McCourt, with his evocative, funny-sad memoir, has done theunimaginable: He's turned Limerick into a hot tourist destination.This is a bit like drawing tourists to the United States to spend aweek in Toledo. Unfairly or not, Ireland's fourth-largest city haslong had a reputation as a gritty, somewhat grim place, with fewattractions for visitors beyond its proximity to ShannonInternational Airport. People tended to use it as a starting andending point when they visited Ireland, but few spent any time there.It's easy to see why. This isn't the Ireland of leprechauns andblarney stones; it's a working city -- computers, manufacturing --without the slick trappings of tourism. Which is precisely why it'sworth visiting. It hasn't been Disneyfied. There is no FrankMcCourt T-shirt shops. The little yellow house on Windmill Streethasn't been turned into an Angela's Ashes B&B; Yet."Angela's Ashes" long ago went from being merely popular tosomething of a cult object. It's been widely praised for itsluminous prose, selling close to 2 million copies in little over ayear, and topping the bestseller lists since its publication. It'swon the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award,and was voted Book of the Year for 1997 by the American BooksellersAssociation.The book is not for the squeamish. In fact, as McCourt says, it's awonder that he survived to tell the tale. He was born in New York ofimmigrant parents who moved the family back to Ireland when he was4. Big mistake. They had already lost one child in New York, and twomore would die in Limerick. The father drank away his wages (when heworked at all), the mother begged for charity and the childrenmostly fended for themselves as the family moved from one squalid,flea-ridden flat to another. A number of villains emerge: members ofthe Catholic clergy, sadistic schoolmasters, callous social workersand -- not the least -- "the gray city of Limerick and the riverthat kills."It sounds horrible, depressing, nothing you'd willingly want to readabout -- much less visit. But people are. "Throngs of them," sighsthe bartender at the venerable W.J. South pub, newly famous as thefavorite watering hole of Frank McCourt's father. "Busloads of them.""Oh yes indeed, it's been quite popular," says Breda Bourke,supervisor of the Limerick tourist information office. "It startedoff with Americans and now we're getting a lot of inquiries from theGermans and the Japanese. It's very, very popular. It's bringingpeople to the city that we might not otherwise have."Liam O'Hanlon, chairman of the Limerick Tourist Trade Association,has led walking tours of the city for years. Until recently, hisroutine was unvarying: King John's Castle, St. Mary's Cathedral andother highlights of Limerick's medieval district. "It was thehistorical things that people were interested in," he says. "Now,suddenly they're walking in with `Angela's Ashes,' wanting to knowwhere the lanes are. They expect to see what Frank McCourt haswritten about -- but what he's written about no longer exists."Well, not exactly. In addition to South's pub, quite a few sitesfrom the book remain, including the Leamy National School, thePeople's Park, a slew of exquisite old churches where the youngFrank frequently sought refuge, and the St. Vincent de Paul Societytown house where his mother, Angela, queued up for charity. But asO'Hanlon emphasizes to visitors, the slums McCourt described sounflinchingly are gone, cleared away during the 1950s and '60s.The Irish economy is booming, thanks in part to the recent influx ofEuropean Union funds, and Limerick is no exception. An urban renewalproject begun in the 1980s has had dramatic results. Construction iseverywhere -- hotels, apartment blocks, pubs, restaurants. Blocks ofonce-elegant, 19th-century Georgian row houses are being lovinglyrestored. There's an undeniable air of prosperity. On a bright fallweekend, the downtown streets are jammed, the shops and restaurantspacked.Down by Arthur's Quay on the banks of the Shannon, there are poshstores, antiques shops and a gleaming new tourist informationcenter. The prestigious Hunt Museum, with an impressive collectionof antiquities, recently moved here from its former digs on theoutskirts of the city. Lovely old churches abound, and they're noteven locked, should you be seized by a sudden desire to confess yoursins.When the walls of Limerick were torn down and the city was rebuiltin the mid-18th century, this area became the city's focal point. Bythe time Frank McCourt was knocking around town, the elegantVictorian buildings had become tenements and Arthur's Quay was knownas a desperate place.Everyone in Limerick knows these houses are old and might fall downat any minute. Mam often says, I don't want any of ye going down toArthur's Quay and if I find ye there I'll break yeer faces. Thepeople down there are wild and ye could get robbed and killed.Now the pendulum has swung again, and the upscale shopping mallthere is full of Nike-clad teenagers and their equally well-dressedelders. You can buy a boombox, or a bottle of fine wine, or ahand-knit sweater to die for. In Quinnsworth's, a supermarket asbright and garish as any Giant or Safeway, I wandered down aislesstocked with 12 different kinds of marmalade and more brands ofchocolate than I even knew existed. There I bought a bag of Odlumsflour, which a local had recommended to me as "quite brilliant"("brilliant" being the Irish word for anything great). I was hopingto re-create the taste of Irish bread when I returned home.Ah. Irish bread. I'd become be sotted with it during my stay. Truthto tell, I'd been pleasantly surprised by Irish food in general. Ofcourse, a "full Irish breakfast" can be a somewhat alarming sightfirst thing in the morning, with lots of fried everything. But manyplaces serve fresh ingredients now, and the seafood, especially, isdelicious. At dinner that night, I headed back to Arthur's Quay andfeasted on fillet of sea bream with crispy leeks and a smoked salmonbutter sauce at a cool neighborhood restaurant called the GreenOnion. Not all my meals in Limerick were as memorable as that one,but it's safe to say that Irish dining has successfully made it intothe '90s.It wasn't just the food and the shops that drew me back to thenarrow streets of Arthur's Quay again and again. It was the history.Limerick is oozing with it. You can be walking down the street,thinking about that hand-knit sweater you just tried on, then lookup to find yourself passing a 13th-century castle. England's KingJohn ordered this fortress built in 1212 to guard the entrance tothe city. Today, you can climb the tower's steep stone staircase,peer through the narrow slitted windows and imagine yourselfshooting arrows at the passersby below. (Hard to get a good angle!)When you finally reach the top, you can stride across thebattlements for commanding views of the city, and scan theapproaching traffic on the Thomond Bridge. Except instead of varletson horseback, there are cars whizzing by, and people on bicycles.From the castle, it's a short walk to St. Mary's Cathedral,Limerick's oldest surviving building. Built in 1172, it's famous forits 15th-century choir stalls, made of dark oak with fancifulcarvings. Outside, there are towering old trees, a wonderful,atmospheric cemetery with crumbling Irish crosses, and a bench whereyou can ponder your puny existence.As a backdrop to all this, the River Shannon is a constant -- andincreasingly lovely -- presence. For years the city turned its backon the river, and has only recently rediscovered it. Now there arewaterfront parks and benches and monuments, and rowing sculls andboathouses. It's a delightful scene on a quiet Sunday morning, withpeople riding by on bicycles, and strolling couples admiring theswans -- yes, swans -- gliding on the river.Above all, there are kids. Most adults of childbearing age seem tohave at least two or three children attached to them. The streets ofLimerick are clogged with rosy babies in strollers, pudgy toddlers,freckle-faced grade-school kids in parochial school uniforms,exuberant packs of teenagers.It's a far cry from the vision of the city summoned by FrankMcCourt. And still . . . Remnants of his Limerick remain, in mutetestimony to harder times.Tour guide O'Hanlon is used to getting a bit of flak from theresidents of Limerick. The first time he visited the former McCourthouse on Windmill Street, he says, a woman came out of her housewith her hands on her hips. "She saw that I had the book and sheasked if I'd read it. I said I had. `Isn't it filth?' she asked." Heshrugs. You run into that kind of attitude a lot on the "Angela'sAshes" circuit.Just a few blocks away on Hartstonge Street, past rows of Georgiantown houses and offices and something called the Victoria ClubLeisure Complex, is a somewhat forbidding, Gothic-looking red-brickbuilding with a crenellated roof. This was Leamy's National School,home to cruel and/or demented schoolmasters and legions of barefoot,underfed students.There are seven masters in Leamy's National School, and they allhave leather straps, canes, blackthorn sticks. They hit you with thesticks on the shoulders, the back, the legs, and, especially, thehands. If they hit you on the hands it's called a slap. They hit youif you're late, if you have a leaky nib on your pen, if you laugh,if you talk, and if you don't know things.They hit you if you don't know why God made the world, if you don'tknow the patron saint of Limerick, if you can't recite the Apostles'Creed, if you can't add 19 to 47, if you can't subtract 19 from 47,if you don't know the chief towns and products of the 32 counties ofIreland, if you can't find Bulgaria on the wall map . . .The school houses offices now -- a tailor shop, a brass plaquecompany. Inside, it's carpeted and renovated, with not a trace of aclassroom remaining. A man with a tape measure around his neck comesout of the tailor's, sees us and rolls his eyes. Have there been alot of "Angela's Ashes" pilgrims poking around? "There have." Has heread the book? "I haven't." (Nobody in Ireland says "yes" or "no.")"A lot of people in Limerick are a bit sour over it," he explains,adding, "The book's got it all wrong. 'Twasn't like that. Not atall."Right next door is another "Ashes" landmark: the four-story,red-brick town house of the St. Vincent de Paul Society, whereFrank's mother, Angela, queued up for charity.Mam goes to the St. Vincent de Paul Society to see if there's anychance of getting furniture. The man says he'll give us a docket fora table, two chairs, and two beds . . . She wipes her eyes on hersleeves and asks the man if the beds we're getting are secondhand.He says of course they are, and she says she's very worried aboutsleeping in beds someone might have died in, especially if they hadthe consumption. The man says, I'm very sorry, but beggars can't bechoosers.The society is still a source of clothing and furniture forLimerick's poor, but "it's much more user-friendly today," saysO'Hanlon. "You don't find people queuing up outside anymore."Onward, to the People's Park, where Frank took his small brothers todistract them from their hunger. Even on a rainy day it's inviting,with well-tended rose gardens, a fanciful Victorian drinkingfountain and the greenest grass I've ever seen. I end up coming backhere several times during my stay -- it's such an appealing place,full of all manner of kids, guys kicking soccer balls, dog-walkers,mums with prams, people on benches. On the facing Pery Square, a rowof striking Georgian row houses with elaborate fanlights is beingrenovated.Down Barrington Street, past doctors' and solicitors' offices withlovely painted doors -- Limerick has great doors -- is Barrack Hill,site of another McCourt residence.We move to Roden Lane on top of a place called Barrack Hill. Thereare six houses on one side of the lane, one on the opposite side.The houses are called two up, two down, two rooms on the top, two onthe bottom. Our house is at the end of the lane, the last of thesix. Next to our door is a small shed, a lavatory, and next to thata stable.Roden Lane, where the McCourts shared that single lavatory with therest of the block, is gone now, but St. Joseph's Church, where theyoung Frank received his First Communion and Confirmation, is alooming presence. That's where Frank applied to be an altar boy, andthere, visible through the white wrought-iron fence, is the doorthat was slammed in his face.Perhaps Frank found more comfort in the massive, century-oldRedemptorist Church on South Circular Road, a dark and beautifulrefuge, with flickering votive candles, an intricate mosaic-tiledfloor and eye-popping, elaborately gilded alcoves. Farther north, onHenry Street, is the huge Franciscan Church where Frank prayed tohis patron saint, Francis of Assisi. With its huge pillared front itlooks more like the Supreme Court than a place of worship, butinside it has the same welcoming feeling and lovely smell of incenseand candle wax. Old women click their rosary beads as shoppers popin, genuflect and say a quick prayer. Anyone raised on modernecclesiastical architecture and streamlined statuary will never wantto leave.You can't escape "Angela's Ashes" in Limerick. Everyone has anopinion about the book, and is only too eager to share it. Storeclerks, waitresses, taxi drivers, people in pubs -- if they aren'trelated to someone in the book, they went to school with them or, atthe very least, know one of the characters.Sabine Sheehan, a desk clerk at Jurys Inn on Lower Mallow Street, inthe dockside area where the young Frank once scrounged for bits ofcoal, watches all the "Ashes" hubbub with amusement. She's adescendant of Ab Sheehan, Angela's brother, and her stepmother isrelated to one of the masters at Leamy School. "The book's prompteda lot of peoples' memories," Sheehan says. "People say he has noright to dredge all this up, but I wouldn't agree. That's the way'twas, and that's the way 'twas."What people think of the book depends on their age, says LiamO'Hanlon. "Younger people have no personal knowledge, and accept thebook as one person's recollections of his childhood as he remembersit. What he's writing about is just another part of Limerickhistory. But there are a lot of people in Limerick in their latesixties who see the book as a challenge to a way of life that theyremember with rose-tinted glasses. He's confronting them with whatthey don't want to hear."Indeed, while opinion about the book is divided, the naysayers mayhave the edge in Limerick. When McCourt comes back to the city forbook tours, irate residents are there to meet him, challenging hismemory and questioning his anecdotes. "Every time he comes toLimerick and puts his head above the parapet, there's someone firingat him," says O'Hanlon."There's a lot of begrudgery about it in the home town," agreesEddie Daly, a clerk in O'Mahony's bookstore on O'Connell Street,where a table in front is piled high with something called "Ashes,"a copycat memoir by Gerard Hannan. "That book was written as aretort to `Angela's Ashes,' " Daly says, "but it doesn't have thesame feeling. Hannan has an ax to grind."While "Angela's Ashes" continues to sell well, Daly says, "it'sprobably selling better on a nationwide basis. A lot of people inLimerick are still a bit tender. But that's the Irish -- we're anation of begrudgers. You see one of your own doing well, you wantto give him some slag."But even if you can't look at "Angela's Ashes" objectively, Dalyadds, "you still have to admire it as a fine piece of work. Timeswere hard, but such was the situation for the vast majority ofpeople in Limerick at the time. I'm a native myself, and I reallyenjoyed it. The humor is amazing. He's a great storyteller."If the bone-crushing poverty of Frank McCourt's Limerick is gone,certain things in Ireland are eternal. On a rainy fall afternoon,waves of mist roll in from the River Shannon, down the Dock Road andthrough the streets and lanes. It's a perfect day to wander intoSouth's pub and curl up with a pint.South's seems ageless with its ancient mahogany wood, marble bar,etched-glass partitions and cozy alcoves called "snugs," but "Och,'tis changed," says a guy nursing a Guinness. In McCourt's day, hesays, it was a third of the size. " 'Tis an old establishment. Therewere terrible characters from the docks, before. It's all differentnow."But it doesn't take long to find someone who grew up with Frank McCourt."The lanes were full of rats," Jerry, a South's regular, is saying."Full of rats they were. We'd wait for the full moon to come out.We'd put our boots on and tuck our pants legs in our boots, and agang of us would go out. I'd kill about 80 on a good night -- hit'em with a stick. That was our entertainment."Has he read "Angela's Ashes"? Big grin. "I'm waiting for someone togive it to me."George, over on the next stool, went to school with Frank's brotherMalachy -- they had the same master, "Hoppy" O'Halloran. "You'd befrightened for your life," he said. "He'd run after you with a bigstick. He'd bring you up and give you six slaps. Really hard, now.He'd leave Malachy in charge when he went away. Now Malachy, he wasa very clever fellow . . ."Times were tough, they say, but happy. "You could leave your dooropen," Jerry says. "There were very good people in the lanes -- veryneighborly. Everyone looked after one another. They were grandpeople. You could always get food from someone. You could get a bunand a bit of tripe . . .""I didn't like what Frank said about where we were living," Georgesays. "It's not true. We weren't that badly off. I wish him luck,but I don't agree with the stuff he put in that book. But he's gothis money now.""Frank's a decent enough fellow," Jerry says. "I don't begrudge himhis success. He survived, and that's it in a nutshell, isn't it?"LIMERICK BURNS OVER 'ANGELA'By Mike Meyer /Chicago Tribune Michael O'Donnell is not your average tour guide. Gerard Hannan is not your average bookshop owner. Frank McCourt is not your average memoir writer. Yet the three men's fates have crossed in Limerick, an average Irish town. And none of them, city included, were prepared for the attention that "Angela's Ashes" would bring them from outside the community, and the controversy it would create from within. I spent the first weeks of January touring the great writers' environments of Ireland -- Joyce and Shaw's Dublin; Heaney's Ulster coast; Yeats' Sligo. Remarkable about each of these areas was the preservation of ambience; you could feel what the land coaxed out of these men and onto the page. Yet Ireland treasures and promotes its writers beyond the postcard stand, as well, and you'll find ample sections of Irish Literature, Irish History and Irish Politics fronting bookseller's shelves, including the works of Frank McCourt. As I traveled, McCourt's name increasingly cropped up in the Irish Times and Independent national newspapers more than any other writer did. More than Bono even, who weighed in frequently with editorials about forgiving Third World debt or U2 receiving the freedom of the city award in Dublin in March. For the top half of January, McCourt vied only with Gerry Adams for most-mentioned celebrity, due to the premiering of the film version of "Angela's Ashes." On the film's opening day, it was the Independent's front page story, right underneath a headline declaring "Pope planning to step down next year." Another writer's stomping grounds had turned tourist attraction, I figured, and so I headed to Limerick for the film's opening and to walk the streets that had etched themselves for half a century in McCourt's mind. But as I made my way south to Limerick, another set of stories about "Angela's Ashes" began to appear in the UK and Irish press. They told of a Limerick writer/bookshop owner/popular radio host who publicly challenged the accuracy of McCourt's memoir and, thus, its merits for receiving the Pulitzer for non-fiction. The stories began small, but as the film's premier drew nearer, they ballooned to the point where the man became a household name and saw himself being discussed at the premiere press co
