Shane MacGowan died at the age of 65, his wife and lifelong partner Victoria Mary Clarke said on Thursday in a heartfelt Instagram post.
The Irish singer-songwriter, best known as the leader of The Pogues and the singer of the seasonal classic “Fairytale of New York,” was recently hospitalized after being diagnosed with encephalitis.
MacGowan’s widow recalled her late husband as someone “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 moon and the start and end of everything that I hold dear” in her post.
“I don’t know how to say this, so I am just going to say it,” Clarke went on to remark. Shane…has gone to live with Jesus and Mary, as well as his lovely mother Therese.”
She went on to state that she feels “blessed beyond words” to have met him “and to have loved him and to have been so endlessly and unconditionally loved by him and to have had so many years of life and love and joy and fun and laughter and so many adventures.”
“There’s no way to describe the loss I’m feeling or the yearning for just one more of his smiles that lit up my world,” Clarke wrote. “Thank you, thank you, thank you for your presence in this world; you brightened it and brought so much joy to so many people with your heart, soul, and music.” “You will always be in my heart.”
“Rave on in the garden, all wet with rain, that you loved so much,” she said at the end of her letter. “You meant the world to me.”
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Although they only married in 2018, Clarke, 57, has remained by MacGowan’s side for almost three decades. The Irish journalist has posted updates on her husband’s deteriorating health in recent months. According to Sky News, he was diagnosed with encephalitis, a rare and possibly fatal ailment that causes the brain to enlarge, in December 2022.
Clarke requested followers’ “love and prayers” for her husband as he battled the ailment from an ICU bed at the hospital back in November. She had just given another tragic update on Instagram a few days prior.
She went on to say, “Love ❤️ is the most beautiful and powerful thing that we can experience as humans, but love can also feel painful, especially if you are afraid of losing a person or anything else that you love.”
According to the U.K. publication The Independent, MacGowan has been in a wheelchair since 2015 after breaking his pelvis in a mishap. For years, the actor struggled with drug and alcohol problems, but his wife claimed in 2016 that he was sober “for the first time in years,” according to the site. Clarke stated that he became sober after contracting pneumonia, which necessitated a “total detox.”
According to Rolling Stone, MacGowan was born in December 1957 in England to Irish émigré parents and spent his boyhood summers in the Irish county of Tipperary. He was described in the article as a “mischievous child with a precocious intellect.” According to the publication, he received a scholarship to the elite Westminster School in London but was expelled for supplying narcotics to fellow pupils.
Before joining The Pogues alongside Spider Stacy, James Fearnley, Andrew Ranken, Cait O’Riordan, and Jem Finer in 1982, he was a mainstay on London’s punk scene as Shane O’Hooligan.
The Pogues, who formed in 1987 with fellow Irish vocalist Kirsty MacColl, had their biggest and most enduring success with “Fairytale of New York,” which is now a mainstay of Christmas party playlists. If I Should Fall From Grace With God, the band’s debut album, featured the song as its first appearance.
MacGowan was sacked from The Pogues in 1991 owing to his unreliability and chronic substance abuse problems. They split up in 1996, reformed in 2001, and ultimately called it quits in 2015, with MacGowan telling Vice that his relationships with his bandmates were better when they weren’t working together.
“I don’t hate the band at all—they’re friends,” MacGowan told the outlet. They are quite appealing to me. We had been pals for years before joining the band. We just became tired of one another.”
“We’re friends as long as we don’t tour together,” he said. I’ve done quite a bit of touring. “I’ve had my fill of it.”
Bruce Springsteen referred to MacGowan as a “master” despite his shortcomings. “He’s the man, you know?” he stated on Ireland’s The Late Late Show in 2020. I genuinely believe that most of us will be forgotten in 100 years. However, I feel Shane’s songs will be remembered and performed. It’s just like things. For me, he’s a maestro. I have a great deal of respect for his work and the job he accomplished with The Pogues.”