SHANE MacGowan’s wife said he will remain in her “heart forever” after The Pogues singer passed away today aged 65.
The tragic event came just days after the couple had celebrated their fifth wedding anniversary.
Confirming his passing, a statement from wife Victoria, sister Siobhan and dad, Maurice, said: “It is with the deepest sorrow and heaviest of hearts that we announce the passing of Shane MacGowan.
“Shane died peacefully at 3am this morning with his wife Victoria and family by his side.
“Prayers and the last rites were read, which gave comfort to his family. He is survived by his wife Victoria, his sister Siobhan and his father Maurice, family and a large circle of friends.”
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Posting her own tribute, wife Victoria said: “I don’t know how to say this, so I am just going to say it.
“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.
“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.”
Shane passed away at his home in Dublin just a few days after being released from St Vincent’s Hospital on November 22.
The Rainy Night in Soho singer had been in intensive care for the past few months after his viral encephalitis diagnosis last year.
Speaking to The Irish Sun recently, his wife Victoria told us how she had been in to see him every day.
She said: “I would rather be in there than not. So I go in every day. Sometimes I get a takeaway and we watch a film together.
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“That’s if I can stop him watching Father Ted.”
HOSPITAL VISITS
Staff in St Vincent’s had been amazed by the string of famous faces calling in to visit Shane.
They included Bono and The Edge from U2, Moya Brennan, Damien Dempsey, Daniel O’Donnell, Imelda May, Mundy and Bobby Gillespie.
Victoria said: “He probably has had more visitors in hospital than he would have at home.”
She added: “Shane would never think of these people as celebrities.
“He would just see them as friends. You can get quite bored in hospital, so it’s nice to have people calling in.”
Today tributes flooded in from all directions for the iconic singer.
The Pogues co-founder Peter “Spider” Stacy shared an image of his pal on stage, adding on X: “‘O Captain! My Captain! Our fearful trip is done . . .’”
'GREATEST SONGWRITER'
Aussie rocker Nick Cave wrote: “A true friend and the greatest songwriter of his generation. A very sad day.”
In an effusive tribute President Michael D Higgins described Shane as “one of music’s greatest lyricists”.
He said: “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.”
Johnny Cronin, of indie band Cronin, revealed how he had been at Shane’s bedside only last Sunday, telling The Irish Sun: “We were with him for about two and a half hours. He was smiling and we were having the craic.
'PROUD IRISHMAN'
“I can’t believe he is gone. He was a proud Irishman, a punk a republican and a great fan of music and a loyal friend, he would stick with you.”
Richard Balls, author of A Furious Devotion: The Authorised Story of Shane MacGowan told us: “Shane was a one-off, a powerhouse on stage and one of the finest songwriters of his generation. We will never see his like again.”
U2 also paid tribute to the star sharing a striking graphic of the singer saying: "Shane MacGowan’s songs were perfect so he or we his fans didn't have to be…"
While former Sky News reporter Enda Brady said he was “a beautiful soul”.
The Tanaiste Micheal Martin paid tribute to Shane, saying: “At this time of the year his death is particularly poignant in the context of the song Fairytale of New York (he sang) with Kirsty MacColl. I think it was written as a bet that he couldn’t write a Christmas song — which he did, and it is now one of the most enduring, and one which continues to resonate with all of us.
Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald hailed Shane as a “dedicated republican and proud Irishman”.
She said: “Ireland has lost one of its greatest and most beloved musical icons.”
Former Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams said: “I was with Shane and Victoria last Wednesday after he was released from hospital.
“I have been a fan of Shane for decades. Ireland has lost a great patriot, a poet and friend of the downtrodden and marginalised.”
'HEART RIPPED OUT OF CHEST'
Shane’s long-term manager and close pal Joey Cashman told us: “My heart has been ripped out of my chest. I loved him.”
There were many more tributes from figures in the Irish music industry, including Brian Warfield of The Wolfe Tones, who described Shane as “a legend in Irish Music”.
Brian told us: “Shane’s name will be remembered as one of the great Irish songwriters of our time.
“It was truly heartbreaking to see how he was suffering in the last days of his life but that is not how we should remember him. Shane was a character in a true Irish sense. He was loved and admired by his many fans across the world.
“His legacy will live forever with his Christmas masterpiece Fairytale of New York. Now Shane, my friend, Rest In Peace”.
Born in Kent, England, in 1957, to Irish parents but raised in rural Tipperary, Shane was prodigiously bright, reading James Joyce and Dostoyevsky by the age of 11.
As a young student he bagged a literary prize and a scholarship to posh Westminster School in London. But nothing was more important to Shane than his Irishness.
EARLY LIFE
Ripped from an idyllic childhood in rural Ireland and transplanted to England’s metropolis, he hung onto his Hibernian roots, later combining them with punk rock to reinvent Irish music for a worldwide audience.
Shane decided to channel his own ethnic music from Ireland to fuel his post punk band Pogue Mahone, later The Pogues.
But after three albums, and the massive success of Fairytale of New York, and constant touring, he reveals how he bagged to leave the band he started as the non stop touring turned into a nightmare.
Looking back in 2020, Shane said: “One year we did 363 gigs… That’s outrageous! When you play a gig every night of the week it ceases to be special.
“Find yourself going through the motions and you find that you are ripping yourself off and ripping the audience off
The Pogues had become what we had hated, a rock band I never saw my girlfriend, I never saw my friends, I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life in a bus or a hotel or a dressing room backstage waiting in a dressing room for the two hours that justified all that baloney.”
