Local group pays tribute to 'loyal friend' Shane MacGowan
Local indie rockers Cronin, who recorded an album with the late Shane MacGowan in the latter years of his life and played at his wedding to Victoria Mary Clarke, say that they have “lost a loyal friend and a songwriting inspiration”.
“We connected because we lived a similar life, and shared the experience of emigration between Ireland and England. We grew up between the Irish countryside and UK cities, and were reared on traditional Irish music,” says Johnny Cronin, who first met Shane 30 years ago outside Leeds University, where he was gigging.
“We met him again then through his band, The Nips, when Mick (Cronin) was drumming with them about 20 years ago in Philly Ryan’s pup in Nenagh.”
“We performed with him many times over the years, he joined us twice on stage at Electric Picnic, the Liverpool Feis, and we were honoured to be asked to play his wedding to Victoria in Copenhagen in 2019.”
Cronin released two songs with Shane, “J’taime Irlande” and “The Rockier Road to Poland”, and have recorded a new 15-track album with Shane, which Cronin say took seven years to complete.
“He was a hero, a genius, so intelligent. We’ve lost a loyal friend and a songwriting inspiration, a high king of Ireland. Our thoughts are with Victoria, his sister Siobhan and all the family.”
President Michael D Higgins led the tributes to “one of music’s greatest lyricists” on Thursday last, when the sad news emerged that the legendary frontman with The Pogues, had died aged 65.
His wife Victoria Mary Clarke confirmed the news on Thursday afternoon, saying Shane was the love of her life and a beautiful soul and “has gone to be with Jesus and Mary and his beautiful mother Therese”.
The Pogues rose to fame in the 1980s and early ‘90s, with hits such as Dirty Old Town, The Irish Rover, A Pair of Brown Eyes and A Rainy Night In Soho, and became a unique voice for the emigrant Irish.
Born in Kent on Christmas Day in 1957 to Irish parents, Shane spent his youth travelling back and forth to Ireland by ferry, spending a lot of time at the family homestead in Nenagh, County Tipperary. This period featured in the 2020 film on his life, A Crock of Gold: A Few Rounds With Shane MacGowan, which was directed by Julian Temple.
A polymath, Shane attended private school in London on a scholarship, and was well versed in all matters political, historical and musical. While in London, he became ensconced in the punk scene, and The Pogues were formed.
President Higgins, who presented Shane with a lifetime achievement award in the National Concert Hall in January 2018, said “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”, adding that he connected Irish people all over the globe to their culture and history.
The president said: “Born on Christmas Day, there was perhaps some form of destiny which led Shane to writing “Fairytale of New York”, the timeless quality of which will surely mean that it will be listened to every Christmas for the next century or more. Likewise songs like “Rainy Night in Soho”, “A Pair of Brown Eyes”, “If I Should Fall from Grace with God” and so many others will live on far into the years and decades to come.”
Shane’s life and music touched many, and he had many locals links to Westmeath; he had his famous smile “fixed” at Coole Clinic by dental surgeon Darragh Mulrooney, which Sky covered in its “A Wreck Reborn” documentary. He was also friends with the late writer JP Donleavy and his son Philip. One of Donleavy’s many works, was the novel Fairytale of New York, later adapted as a play, which inspired The Pogues’ Christmas hit.