Shane MacGowan’s spouse reveals particulars of singer’s final days and ‘surprising’ love for Royal Family

The spouse of The Pogues frontman Shane MacGowan has stated he “wasn’t ready to give up” when he died.

Victoria Mary Clarke shared information of her husband’s loss of life on the age of 65 in a publish on Instagram on 30 November.

MacGowan, who’s greatest identified for the festive hit Fairytale Of New York, had suffered from a number of well being points lately, and earlier in November, was handled in St Vincent’s Hospital in Dublin for an an infection.

He was despatched house weeks earlier than his birthday, the place he died of pneumonia, The New York Times cited Clarke, a author, as saying.

Discussing his final days, she stated she had been making an attempt various therapists, hypnotists, well being drinks and physios to attempt to assist him.

She stated after first studying that her husband was coming to the top of his life, she thought she was “going to die”.

“He was putting up a really strong fight. He was trying very hard to breathe,” she informed the Brendan O’Connor Show on Ireland’s RTE radio on Saturday.

“He wasn’t ready to give up. He wasn’t ready to stop fighting – but his body did it for him.”

‘Huge, bizarre contradiction’

In a separate interview on the weekend, Clarke revealed that each she and Kent-born MacGowan – whose songs have been influenced by Irish nationalism – cherished the Royal Family, one thing that she stated “people wouldn’t expect”.

“We both enjoyed watching programmes about royalty, we watched a lot of documentaries, obviously the funerals,” she informed BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

“He cried when Prince Philip died, he cried when the Queen died, he cried when Diana died, he thought a lot about the Royal Family, but he was an ardent republican.”

She added that he had a “huge love of England and also of Ireland” in what she known as a “huge, weird contradiction”.

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“Sometimes we would be sitting there doing the Telegraph crossword puzzle, and I would just be thinking ‘Gosh, there’s people out there who would be horrified if they could see you doing the Telegraph crossword’.”

Clarke then joined in calls to get the beloved Christmas hit her husband was greatest identified for, again to the highest of the UK charts.

“It should be the Christmas number one, it absolutely should. I’m very much in favour of that,” she stated.

The announcement of MacGowan’s loss of life was met with an outpouring of tributes, together with from Bruce Springsteen, who stated folks could be “singing Shane’s songs 100 years from now”.

Dublin rock band U2 additionally paid tribute, posting a drawing of the singer on social media, with the caption: “Shane MacGowan’s songs were perfect so he or we his fans didn’t have to be…”

On Friday, Clarke thanked folks for his or her “love and support” after her husband’s loss of life, posting an image of the 2 of them showing to bop.

“Losing Shane has been the thing that I feared most for a very long time, almost since we first got together,” she wrote.

“Some of the messages and gestures of support have been incredibly moving and unexpected, and I really, really hope that Shane can see how much he is loved by so many people of all ages and kinds.”

The publish on Instagram gained greater than 25,000 likes and over 1,000 feedback.