THE best way to return to Limerick is to write a best-selling memoir, Angela's Ashes, and have its Irish launch in O'Mahoney's Book Shop on O'Connell Street.

It helps to have already appeared on the Late Late Show with a gracious Gay Byrne who has actually read the book. (You can go on American chat shows with hosts who know only the title of the book and whatever their producers tell them.) And once you're on with Mr Byrne you're no longer invisible anywhere in Ireland. You're a) the man that was on the Late Late, and by the man that wrote that book, what's its name.

The book was first launched on September 5th at Ireland House in New York. My brothers were there with their wives: Malachy and Alphie from New York, Michael from San Francisco. Down the years we've had our brotherly disputes; one might not talk to the other three; two might not talk to the other two. We grumbled and gossiped and complained about each other and there were times when we seemed to have nothing in common. But it was this book, set in Limerick, which brought us together and, I think, helped heal our wounds.

When I told them I'd be going to Limerick for the launch at O'Mahoney's, Malachy said he'd alike to go. Michael and Alphie said they could never manage it and what did it matter anyway? Later, Alphie changed his mind: he wanted to come. He called Michael who resisted - but not for long.

We hadn't been together in Limerick since I left in 1949. Longer and longer in the tooth, we were ready for another reunion.

F. Scott Fitzgerald said that in American lives there are no second acts. Thomas Wolfe said "You can't go home again". They were wrong. Ask me. There are second acts in American lives third acts, too. After years of menial jobs, then teaching, I'm now in act three, The Author, if you don't mind. And the author went home if after 47 years, you can call Limerick "home".

And why is it that after the success of Angela's Ashes in various countries on both sides of the Atlantic, the one place that mattered to me was Ireland, and Limerick in particular? If I could read to a packed and enthusiastic house at Waterstones, sign dozens of books at Fred Hannas and rejoice in my 15 minutes of fame, why should I give a fiddler's fart what they thought in the place I grew up economically miserable and spiritually terrified?

Interviewers asked me repeatedly: "Do you consider yourself Irish or American?" And I answered: "Neither. I'm a New Yorker." That's what I said before I returned to Limerick. Now I'm not so sure. For years I had struggled with the writing of Angela's Ashes. I had assumed the mantle of victim and blamed Limerick and everyone in it for my troubles. Twenty-five years ago the book would have been an indictment, an essay in savage indignation. Then the news began to filter across the ocean: All was not well in the old city by the river. You'd tell people from other parts of Ireland you were from Limerick and they'd give you a pitying look. Americans, fresh from Dublin, would say how they passed through Limerick on the way to Shannon and they'd quote from a travel guide that "the best view of Limerick is through the rear-view mirror" and, for some reason, you'd find yourself bristling. You'd want to say, "Hold on, hold on. It isn't that bad", till you learned from the New York Times that Limerick was now known as "stab city". You'd want to tell the world, "No, no. Dublin is worse."

While all this is going on you're wondering, "What the hell do I care in the first place? I live in New York."

No, I don't understand that mysterious thing called sense of place. I don't understand why I trek all the way up to 42nd Street to buy the Limerick Leader. I don't understand why my brothers and I are so "Limerick" when we get together, why we laugh and use a down and dirty Limerick accent: gesh oush of ish, go way ower dat, I'll break your bloody countenance, is it coddin me you are, come in, Josie, for your castle o' pandy an' your blue duck egg that no wan else in the lane has, come in oush of ish.

Why does my heart break when the Limerick hurlers lose to Offaly and Wexford in the final minutes, and when I read about the glorious deeds of the Young Munster, Garryowen and Shannon rugby teams why do I want to run into the streets and pubs of New York with the good news?

You can take the boy out of Limerick, etcetera.

I might tell the interviewers I'm a New Yorker but I straddle the hyphen in Irish-American. I can have it both ways, if I like. In my 30 years of teaching I swam in the American mainstream and, apart from reading the local Irish-American newspapers, had little to do with the Irish community in New York: My brother Alphic bad married a Jewish lady and opened a Mexican restaurant and that's where he was. Michael, in San Francisco, keeps an eye on Ireland but lives an "American" life. Malachy has always been a presence on the Irish-American scene.

By the time I arrived in Dublin with my wife, Ellen, Angela's Ashes had already climbed into lathe New York Times best-seller list. At the Frankfurt Book Fair there was already a great buzz about the book though I was not invited to participate in the strictly "Irish" events. I had the misfortune to be born in New York. There were panels and symposiums on the Irish diaspora and if I couldn't talk about that who could? You can't have any old narrowback sticking his nose in here. I felt rejected and suffered my spasm of irritation till I realised I had been cast into the outer darkness with the likes of John Montague, Mary Lavin, and, if you will, Eamon de Valera himself.

Dublin. My HarperCollins publicist, Moira Reilly, had booked us into the Shelbourne Hotel, a suite, if you don't mind, looking out on St Stephen's Green; not my green but 'twill do. We checked in and walked down the street to Leinster House to have lunch with Jim Kemmy TD, of Limerick, and John Boland of The Irish Times. Alphie and Malachy are already there quaffing their mineral waters and I have to balance the economy by ordering a lager. We beat our lunch and talk about Limerick. Malachy tells stories about this adventures with Richard Harris in New York and Hollywood. We talk about the glory days of Limerick hurling when Mick Mackey raised the solo run to perfection. We talk about Tom Clifford, Irish International from Young Munsters.

That's what we came to Leinster House to talk about. I move through Dublin in a dream. I've come back repeatedly, lived here for awhile in the early 1970s while Fl did not get my Ph D at Trinity College. Now people shake my hand, tell me they love the book. Can the begrudgers be far behind? I'm Irish. I know.

Or has begrudgery gone the way of the ass and the cart, the empire of the crawthumper?

I'm being followed around Dublin and elsewhere by a crew from CBS, the American television network. They're working on a 10 minute segment for CBS Sunday Morning, a venerable and venerated programme which doesn't insult the intelligence, and the topic is the return of the writer who grew up in Limerick. Dubliners are curious: Who is this man being interviewed outside and inside Waterstones? I think of Christopher Marlowe:

Isn't it grand to be a king

And ride in triumph through Persepolis.

And then I think of the journey to Limerick.

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

Oh, Frankie McCourt, isn't it grand you are in yourself.

Ten years ago a man stopped me in Limerick. He took a photograph from an inside pocket a class picture from Leany's National School. He pointed to an urchin in the picture. "That's you, Frankie McCourt." I nodded. There was a resemblance. The man said, "So that's you, Frankie. Now, where am I?" I looked. I searched. I made the wrong guess. The man put the picture back into his pocket. "How 500fl we forget, Frankie. But that's how it is. Back from America, can't find your old pal in a picture. How grand we are, Frankie, how grand."

LIMERICK. I drive in on the Dublin Road and all the green fields I knew when I delivered telegrams are gone. There's a university which everyone says has changed the life and energy of the city. There is traffic as thick as anything around New York.

I'm here now with my three brothers, the first time since 1949, and I know, like me, they can hardly catch their breath with the surge of feeling, that tears are ready to roll. My brother, Michael, lets them roll. He reaches back for one of my mother's favourite sayings, "Ah, God, me bladder is near me eye".

There's a reception in the town hall and Mayor O'Hanlon makes a presentation, tells us how proud Limerick is to welcome us back, how the success of Angela's Ashes has, once again, placed Limerick in the limelight. I respond that this is the high point of my brief career as an author, that I'm honoured beyond words.

Until that night, that is.

I sign books and try to have a few seconds with people talking about the old days in the lanes, the school, the churches, the Archconfraternity of the Holy Family. I want to stop and tell everyone to stay so that I can talk to them.

But Moira Reilly has to keep them moving and I moan as my past passes once more. For the love of Jesus, let me talk to the shadows. I want to talk to the flesh and blood of the Horrigans, the Campbells, the Harolds, the Clohessys.

I had my moments in Dublin with Michael, Desmond, Kevin, the three sons of Leamy's headmaster, Thomas L. O'Halloran. Now I want to look at the children of the other masters from Leamy's. Moira keeps them moving. They've brought pictures of my mother, my brothers, St Joseph's troupe of the Catholic Boy Scouts, outings to Kilkee, picnics to Cratloc.

I won't have this night again. I won't have hundreds of people from the old lanes smiling at me, welcoming me. This is beyond my wildest dreams and I wish I could stop signing books for a minute and go out for a pint with everyone.

I think of all the years I came here from New York with a chip on my shoulder. Now the chip is melted and I'm home. The next morning I meet my brothers for breakfast at the Royal George Hotel. They're going to the airport and when it's time to leave we embrace and if we weep we joke and announce: "Me bladder is near me eye.

All I did was write a book about a miserable childhood in Limerick and this is my reward.

Oh, Limerick