Shane MacGowan, of the group the Pogues, performs onstage at the Vic Theater, Chicago, Illinois, July 12, 1986. Paul Natkin/Getty Images
Irish singer and songwriter Shane MacGowan, known for fronting The Pogues, has died at age 65.
MacGowan’s wife, Victoria Mary Clarke, announced the “Fairytale of New York” musician’s death via Instagram on Thursday, November 30, sharing a throwback photo of MacGowan holding a wine glass and a cigarette. “I don’t know how to say this so I am just going to say it. Shane who will always be the light that I hold before me and the measure of my dreams and the love ❤️ of my life and the most beautiful soul and beautiful angel and the sun and the moon and the start and end of everything that I hold dear has gone to be with Jesus and Mary and his beautiful mother Therese,” Clarke wrote.
She added that she was “blessed beyond words” to have known MacGowan and “to have been so endlessly and unconditionally loved by him” through the years. “There’s no way to describe the loss that I am feeling and the longing for just one more of his smiles that lit up my world,” her tribute continued. “Thank you thank you thank you thank you for your presence in this world you made it so very bright and you gave so much joy to so many people with your heart and soul and your music.”
Clarke concluded: “You will live in my heart forever. Rave on in the garden all wet with rain that you loved so much ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ You meant the world to me.”
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A separate statement was uploaded via the official Pogues Instagram account, revealing that MacGowan was surrounded by loved ones when he “died peacefully” Thursday morning. Along with his wife, MacGowan is survived by his father, Maurice, and sister Siobhan.
Shane MacGowan, Cait O’Riordan, Andrew Rankin, Jem Finer, Spider Stacy, and James Fearnley of the Pogues on November 30, 1984. Steve Rapport/Getty Images
One week before his death, MacGowan was discharged from a hospital in Dublin, where he received several months of treatment for an infection. He was diagnosed with encephalitis last year and used a wheelchair after sustaining an injury in a 2015 fall. MacGowan also struggled with drug and alcohol abuse, with Clarke revealing in 2016 that MacGowan was sober “for the first time in years.” (The couple tied the knot in 2018 after an 11-year engagement.)
Shane MacGowan of the group the Pogues. Steve Rapport/Getty Images
MacGowan found success after founding The Pogues in the 1980s and is perhaps best known for cowriting the Christmas hit “Fairytale of New York,” reportedly one of the most-played holiday songs in the U.K. The tune was recently reimagined by NFL athletes Jason and Travis Kelce, who released “Fairytale of Philadelphia” earlier this month. (The song is featured on A Philly Special Christmas Special, the second charity album from Jason and the Philadelphia Eagles dropping Friday, December 1.)
MacGowan was “one of music’s greatest lyricists,” Irish President Michael Higgins noted in a tribute to the late artist on Thursday. “So many of his songs would be perfectly crafted poems, if that would not have deprived us of the opportunity to hear him sing them,” Higgins continued. “The genius of Shane’s contribution includes the fact that his songs capture within them, as Shane would put it, the measure of our dreams – of so many worlds, and particularly those of love, of the emigrant experience and of facing the challenges of that experience with authenticity and courage, and of living and seeing the sides of life that so many turn away from.”
Higgins added: “His words have connected Irish people all over the globe to their culture and history, encompassing so many human emotions in the most poetic of ways.”