Patrick Fenton

An Evening With Alphie McCourt

The other night I drove back to my old neighborhood in Park Slope, Brooklyn to hear him read from his new book, a memoir of his life, called, “A Long Stone’s Throw.” It’s a wonderful book that reads like a fresh, barroom tale. You just want it to go on and on until “last call.” Like his two brothers, Malachy and Frank, he has that special Irish gift to write just as interesting as he talks.

You would think that drinking a pint of Guinness would be simple enough, but not so. Not to an Irishman who has a writer’s eye for detail. Here’s his description of two men drinking the perfect pint, which he describes as “the black body and the creamy head of the blonde in the black skirt.

“In the drinking of a pint of stout, no unnecessary touching is allowed: no looking, no fidgeting, no foreplay whatsoever. After a suitable interval and at a sign undetectable to anyone but themselves, Christy and company will turn, grasp the glass, offer a ’good luck’, take a good long pull and put the glass back on the bar. This action is repeated perhaps four, but no more than four times until the pint is demolished. They will know of course, that when the right rhythm is maintained, by the third or fourth swallow the backup pint will miraculously appear. God will be in his Heaven, custom and protocol will have prevailed.” (With a dash of humor he parallels this description with Irish sex.)

Like all good Irish stories, his reading had a mix of sadness in with the humor. At the end of the reading he announced that it was customary for him to end with a song.

I don’t know if it had anything to do with the latest news reports coming out of Ireland that trouble in the form of shootings and killings are back in the North, but he sang Ed McCurdy’s classic, “Last Night I had the Strangest Dream.” After, there was not a person in the audience that didn’t applaud.

I hope McCurdy’s song is in the juke-boxes of the pubs of Northern Ireland, through Armagh to Antrim, and I hope this St. Patrick’s Day they play the hell out it. Here it is.



Here’s to Peace in the North, here’s to you, Alphie. Here’s to “A Long stone’s Throw. “

Last night I had the strangest dream,
I’d ever dreamed before I dreamed
the world had all agreed To put an
end to war. I dreamed I saw a mighty
room, filled with women and men
and the paper they were signing
said they’d never fight again.

And when the paper was all signed,
and a million copies made they all
joined hands and bowed their heads,
and grateful prayers were made
and the people in the streets below,
were dancing round and round
while swords and guns and uniforms
were scattered on the ground.

- Pat Fenton, born on the 17th of March.

About the Author Writer, Author and Playwright, Patrick Fenton, the son of Irish immigrants, was born in the Irish working-class tenements of Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn on St Patrick's Day, 1941.

As a writer, Fenton's stories and articles have appeared in numerous publications including the New York Times, New York Newsday, New York Magazine and The Daily News. As a noted Kerouac scholar, Fenton's stories, "The Wizard of Ozone Park" and "Drinking With Jack Kerouac in a Rockaway Bar" are eclectic bookend perspectives of the great American author and his stories "Confessions of a Working Stiff" and "Stoopdreamer and Other Brooklyn Stories" a roadmap of his coming of age as a NYC Irish-American blue-collar Joe.

As a Playwright, Fenton's "Jack's Last Call" is a poignant look at Jack Kerouasc's last days in Newport, LI as he wrestled with his misconstrued career. Click Here To Learn More About "Jack's Last Call"

Also Of Note - Other Great Pat Fenton St. Patrick Day Specials - Over the last few years Pat has kindly shared his special wit, humor and insight to things, American, things Irish and how we're all human beings trying to make it to sundown with honor, grace and compassion. Please join us in his intimations in the celebration of humanity.

Click Here To View Going Home - Squaring the Irish Circle - A poem by Patrick Fenton

Click Here To View Drinking a pint with Behan and Kerouac - A story by Patrick Fenton

Click Here To View Almost Home from
"Stoopdreamer & Other Brooklyn Stories"

"Without the mission of the Irish monks . . . the world that came after them would have been an entirely different one--a world without books."

Thoms Cahill - from his book "How The Irish Saved Civilization."