FOLK-PUNK POGUES FRONTMAN, SHANE MACGOWAN DIES @ 65

Read Time:53 Second

The main singer and composer for the Celtic folk-punk band The Pogues, Shane MacGowan, passed away on Thursday at the age of 65 following a protracted illness, according to his widow.

“Shane who will always be the light that I hold before me… has gone to be with Jesus and Mary and his beautiful mother Therese,” wrote MacGowan’s wife Victoria Mary Clarke in an Instagram post.

The Irish folk-tinged Christmas classic “Fairytale of New York,” written by MacGowan in 1987, is The Pogues’s biggest success. MacGowan had been in and out of the hospital in Dublin since July.

The Pogues, which MacGowan co-founded, combined punk and Irish folk music. MacGowan was born in England but lived much of his youth in Ireland with his mother’s family.

“Shane will be remembered as one of music’s greatest lyricists,” Irish President Michael D. Higgins said in a statement.

“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,” he said.

AFP