The book was a phenomenal success and was made into a film starring Emily Watson and Robert Carlyle.

McCourt died at a hospice in Manhattan, after suffering meningeal complications while undergoing treatment for skin cancer.

McCourt was born in Brooklyn but the family returned to Limerick - his mother Angela's home town - when he was four. At 19, McCourt emigrated to America. He worked as a teacher for 30 years, an experience he detailed in another memoir Teacher Man.