Shane MacGowan dies aged 65

Legendary Pogues frontman Shane MacGowan has passed away at the age of 65.

The singer was recently discharged from hospital, and passed away at home in the early hours of this morning.

MacGowan was being treated in St Vincents after being diagnosed with encephalitis last year.

In recent years, MacGowan was confined to a wheelchair.

His wife Victoria Mary Clarke wrote on Instagram “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.”

“I am 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,” she said.

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

MacGowan’s reign as frontman of folk group The Pogues propelled the band to worldwide stardom, collaborating with the likes of Joe Strummer from The Clash and Sinead O’Connor.

The groups’ signature anthem Fairytale Of New York is a staple of Christmas radio in Ireland and the UK, but the band is also well-known for their hits such as Fiesta and Rainy Night In Soho.

President Michael D Higgins led the tributes to MacGowan, saying “Shane will be remembered as one of music’s greatest lyricists. 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.”

“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.”

“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.”