Thousands of mourners lined the streets of Dublin yesterday to bid farewell to Irish hero Shane MacGowan, the punk rocker who elevated traditional Celtic music to new heights as co-founder of the band The Pogues.
After his death at age 65 from months of complications and pneumonia, his horse-drawn carriage cortege wound through two miles of the city’s streets where musicians gathered and fans joined them in singing songs like Dirty Old Town and A Pair of Brown Eyes as the procession passed by.
As the casket rolled through his hometown of Nenagh draped in the Irish flag, his 1988 hit, If I Should Fall From Grace With God, was pounding from speakers, while the crowd clapped and cheered him on his way.
“Let me go boys, let me go boys… Let me go down in the mud where the rivers all run dry.”
But it was the Irish funeral service, in a nearby church in County Tipperary, that truly demonstrated how to say goodbye to a lively character such as Shane: make it a celebration.
One highlight for the crowd gathered at the public church service was when musicians got up and sang Shane’s unforgettable Christmas song, Fairytale of New York.
Glen Hansard from the band The Frames got a standing ovation on lead vocal and guitar, while John Sheahan from The Dubliners played his tin whistle. The joyful emotions rose to such a height that friends and family escaped the rows of benches to dance in the aisles.
Shane’s friend Johnny Depp, who read a prayer, called the exceptional songwriter “the maestro”, and Bono shared a message via video. Nick Cave also performed MacGowan’s moving ballad A Rainy Night in Soho at the piano.
You can watch the whole funeral below, but we’ve started the video on Fairytale of New York…
People on the streets of Dublin also rang out spontaneously with the lyrics of the poignant Christmas tale—living proof that the hard-living MacGowan will never be forgotten—especially in December…
After Shane MacGowan’s cortège passes by, hundreds of people remain on Westland Row/Lincoln Place in Dublin for an impromptu rendition of Fairytale of New York. pic.twitter.com/sKq0GoSP5T
— David Young (@DavidYoungPA) December 8, 2023
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