Pogues Frontman Shane MacGowan Dead At 65

Shane MacGowan, the lead singer of Celtic punk band The Pogues, has died at 65.

Announcing the news of his demise on social media, MacGowan’s wife Victoria Mary Clarke said, “Shane… has gone to be with Jesus and Mary and his beautiful mother Therese.”

She said her husband breathed his last on Thursday after a prolonged illness.

“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,” Clarke wrote on Instagram.

MacGowan “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,” she added.

MacGowan, who had struggled with drugs and alcohol, was diagnosed with viral encephalitis in 2022 and was hospitalized.

He co-founded the Anglo-Irish band blending traditional Irish folk music with punk sounds in 1982 with Peter ‘Spider’ Stacy, Jem Finer and James Fearnley.

“Fairytale of New York,” featuring McGowan and Kirsty MacColl, is considered as The Pogues’ greatest hit.

Paying tribute to MacGowan, Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said his “songs beautifully captured the Irish experience, especially the experience of being Irish abroad.”

(Photo: Masao Nakagami; CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia)