'That’s some send-off': Hundreds gather in Nenagh for funeral of Shane MacGowan
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The small town of Nenagh in Co Tipperary had never witnessed anything quite like it before.
The attendance of both Hollywood star Johnny Depp and President Michael D Higgins at St Mary of the Rosary Church on Friday was a tribute to how the music and personality of Shane MacGowan crossed boundaries and seemed to attract fans and friends from all walks of life.
More than an hour before the funeral was due to begin, devoted followers of MacGowan and The Pogues had gathered outside the church.
A handmade sign with “thanks for all the fairytales Shane” was placed on the side of the road. “RIP Shane” was written on the side of a haybale further along the road.
As the hearse carrying MacGowan’s remains arrived at the church, his widow Victoria Mary Clarke bowed her head as she touched the coffin of the man she has described as the love of her life.
Soon afterwards, Hollywood actor Johnny Depp waved to the crowds as he arrived. The 60-year-old Pirates Of The Caribbean film series star, a close friend of MacGowan, was dressed on Friday in a black suit, hat and wearing a scarf and dark sunglasses.
The procession of well-known faces kept on coming, Australian singer-songwriter Nick Cave, Hothouse Flowers frontman Liam O’Maonlai, Bobby Gillespie from Primal Scream, Game Of Thrones actor Aidan Gillen and former Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams.
Parish priest Father Pat Gilbert captured the mood when welcomed “the world” to the local church.
“We welcome the world of people this great man influenced, encouraged, entertained and touched,” he said.
“Your presence here is very important and a huge statement of the love and esteem we all have and had for this great man.”
MacGowan’s coffin was brought to the front of the church draped in an Irish tricolour flag and placed close to a large black and white photograph of the Pogues singer.
MacGowan’s widow Victoria Mary Clarke presented symbols of her late husband during the funeral mass which included a copy of a Depp album, whom she called a “massive fan” of The Pogues frontman.
A Led Zeppelin record, art and lyrics from MacGowan that form a Crock Of God book, a James Joyce novel, a hurling stick and a Tipperary flag were also among the items presented at Saint Mary’s of the Rosary Church in Nenagh.
While the occasion was always going to be tinged with regret, this was a funeral filled with music, laughter and appreciation.
Time and again the walls of the old church seemed to shake as spontaneous rounds of applause broke out.
Delivering the homily, Fr Gilbert said MacGowan had made Irish music cool around the world.
He added: “As teenagers, not being able to verbalise our uneasiness, displeasure, our uncomfortable assessment of what was happening all around us, we found an outlet, a channel, a conduit in the music and lyric of the day.
“In the words of Dickens, ‘It was the best of times and the worst of times’. But the music and the lyric were tremendous, and Shane was the master of them all.
“As Brendan Behan did in prose, Shane MacGowan did in poetry. The raw vibrant energetic earthy soul-filled expression gave us hope and heart and hankering.”
He added: “A poet, lyricist, singer, trailblazer, Shane reflected life as lived in our time, calling out accepted norms that oftentimes appear unacceptable.”
During the service, many of MacGowan’s best known songs were played, including a rendition of A Rainy Night In Soho by Cave.
Depp, who was best man at MacGowan’s wedding, read out one of the prayers of the faithful, while a recording of Bono delivering a reading was played.
Fittingly, there was dancing inside the church as MacGowan’s most famous song, Fairytale Of New York, was performed by Glen Hansard and Lisa O’Neill.
His sister Siobhan rose to deliver a eulogy after the performance.
Smiling, she told mourners: “Wow, I think Shane would have enjoyed that. That’s some send-off for my brother, so thank you.”
Siobhan said, while they were born in Kent, her brother’s “veins ran deep with Irish blood”, and he found his spiritual home in Co Tipperary, their mother’s childhood home.
“Shane absorbed the magical mayhem of this place, and along with the musical talents of his mother, the literary leanings of his father, and their enduring love for their son, it would be the greatest influence on his life,” she said.
In her eulogy to her husband, Victoria Mary Clarke told mourners that MacGowan was “so full of love”.
“He was very much a humanitarian and a socialist and he loved people, but he didn’t necessarily demonstrate that to his friends always,” she said.
“He could be quite cantankerous and rude and sometimes hostile, and I’m sure the Pogues will attest to that.
“But towards the end, he just told everybody how much he loved them, like nurses in the hospital were almost shocked because he would say ‘I love you’ and he’d never even met them before.
She added: “And I just think for so many people, he was just so full of love, and I’m feeling so much love now from him, that I don’t think he can go away.
“I don’t think love can go away, can it? I really just don’t.”
Clarke said she felt “there was nothing more that my life needed in order to be complete than to be with him”.
“I loved his presence and I loved his smile and I loved his voice,” she said.
“And I have yet to meet a couple who have that gift. I still have not yet met a couple, no matter how successful or glamorous or whatever they are, good looking. I just haven’t met anyone else who has that connection. So it would be greedy really to want more than we got. We got so much.
“And I know of course I’m going to miss him and I’m going to be devastated and I’m going to be crying and crying and crying, but at the same time as crying and feeling devastated I think it’s possible to also feel that my heart has got bigger.
“And it’s got so much bigger as a result of a relationship that it can never really go back. I can never go back to being the kind of person I was before I met him.”