Stars we lost in 2023: Shane MacGowan, The Pogues

Shane MacGowan, best known as the lead singer of The Pogues, which fused a punk spirit with traditional Irish folk music, died in late 2023 at the age of 65 years.

His family released a statement saying he died peacefully early in the morning of Nov. 30, with his wife and sister by his side. “It is with the deepest sorrow and the heaviest of hearts that we announce the passing of our most beautiful, darling and dearly beloved Shane MacGowan,” it read.

While the statement did not specify what happened, he had been suffering from health issues for some time. According to Irish broadcaster RTE, MacGowan had been receiving treatment at St Vincent's Hospital in Dublin for several months and was discharged in the days before his passing.

The tributes came pouring in from all parts, including the President of Ireland Michael Higgins, who described him as “one of music’s great lyricists.” "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,” he said.

Born in England to Irish parents in 1957, MacGowan spent much of his childhood with his mom’s family in Ireland, surrounded by traditional Irish music. Here, he’s seen visiting his childhood home in Tipperary, Ireland with his mom. He was gifted in literature but did not finish high school and started drinking very young. He joined a punk band known as ‘The N i p s.’

In the early 80s, he, Jem Finer and Spider Stacey formed the band that was to become The Pogues. It drew on his punk roots and knowledge of Irish folk music that became hugely popular in the local scene. The first album ‘Red Roses for Me’ was released in 1984 and the band toured widely.

Much of his songs traced what life was like for the downtrodden. Though the lives in his songs were booze-soaked, they were also often romantic. Like the lyrics from one of their most famous songs, Dirty Old Town: “I met my love by the gas works wall/ dreamed a dream by the old canal/ I kissed my girl by the factory wall/ Dirty old town….”

Taking up a bet in 1987 that he could not write a Christmas song, he came up with the band’s biggest hit, Fairytale in New York. It begins: ‘It was Christmas Eve, babe/ in the drunk tank, an old man said to me: ‘won’t see another one.’” It was a duet with Kirsty MacColl.

The intense lifestyle marked by a lot of drink and hectic touring took its toll, and MacGowan and the band split in 1991. He started a solo career and a new band called The Popes. But in 2001, he eventually rejoined the group.

Booze was central to a lot of his career, which his future wife later said was not very problematic at the beginning, but it did become unhealthy, especially after he started mixing with hard drugs. He often performed and gave interviews while he was cleary intoxicated.

The other famous Irish singer, who also died this year, famously called the cops on him in 2001 for drug possession. He later told Livewire that he was originally furious, but that the call ended his relationship with heroine.

In a documentary about his life (produced by Johnny Depp, amongst others) he said he was "ashamed" he "didn't have the guts to join the IRA, and the Pogues was my way of overcoming that," as a way to "participate in the revolution as a musician," according to the Irish Sun. The Irish Republican Army (IRA) fought for Irish independence.

In the 2003 interview with Livewire he said he planned on sticking around for a long time. He said he had lost friends and family to drink and drugs. “But in concerns of the percent, most of my family and friends either lived to a ripe old age or are still alive. My mother and father are still alive and still drinking.. And several of that generation, yeah? The generation before that lasted well into their… nineties, most of them, yeah?”

He was known much of his life for his very bad teeth. And most of them had totally fallen out by 2007. But he joked around about it and even made an hour-long television program about him getting implants in the 2015 TV program: 'Shane MacGowan: A Wreck Reborn.'

His partner Victoria Mary Clarke told the Independent that he became sober for the first time in years in 2016. That came after falling and fracturing his pelvis, which put him in a wheelchair, as well as a serious bout with pneumonia.

In November 2018, he married the Irish journalist Victoria Mary Clarke in Copenhagen. They had been engaged for 11 years and together for decades and first met when she was 16. She was with him on his deathbed, bringing up the love story described in one of his other greatest hits: ‘I love you till the end.’

In a social media post last New Year’s Eve, he revealed he was diagnosed with encephalitis — a serious condition where the brain becomes inflamed or swollen. While the connection with that is still unknown, he was hospitalized in the intensive care unit in July 2023.