They followed the horse-drawn carriage singing songs that were written as raucous ballads. But on this day, the crowds of mourners sung softly, their voices floating into a grey Dublin day in farewell to Shane MacGowan.
The Pogues singer was dead but for mourners his lyrics seldom felt so alive as his funeral cortege wound through the heart of Ireland’s capital on Friday.
There were tears and applause as the near 50-member marching band paused along the route to play Fairytale of New York and other hits that, for some, recalled memories of pubs and clubs, squats and bedsits, youth, dreams and loss.
“It’s important to say goodbye to a huge legend,” said Sean O’Donnell, holding a tricolour flag, as thousands gathered. “We’ll still be listening to these songs a hundred years from now.”
The procession was a prelude to a celebrity-studded funeral in Nenagh, County Tipperary, which was to be followed on Saturday by cremation and a scattering of ashes into the river that inspired MacGowan’s The Broad Majestic Shannon, about an exile’s yearning for home.
“He was one of the greatest Irishmen,” said Dermot Doran, 55. “He embodied the soul and spirit of this country. He embodied who we are, warts and all, and expressed it magnificently. We’ll always be proud of Shane, just like the English are of Dickens.”
Doran recalled a 1986 gig in New York when MacGowan slugged from a huge bottle of white wine that he shared with the audience. “You don’t get many people doing that nowadays.”
The songwriter and vocalist died on 30 November at the age of 65 after a long illness, drawing tributes from artists and musicians around the world who cited the influence of the Pogues’ trailblazing Celtic punk.
Johnny Depp, Nick Cave, Bod Geldof and President Michael D Higgins attended the funeral mass in Tipperary, the home of MacGowan’s mother’s family. Messages left outside St Mary of the Rosary church in Nenagh channelled his lyrics. “Sad to say, I must be on my way,” said one.
Glen Hansard and Lisa O’Neill performed Fairytale of New York and Cave performed A Rainy Night in Soho, drawing cheers from the congregation and crowds outside the church. Depp and the former Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams gave readings. A recording of Bono delivering a reading was played.
Father Pat Gilbert said mortality lay at the heart of MacGowan’s music. “Your life gave growth to so many of us, Shane, and your bright light gave salvation to our often dark and empty skies.”
In a eulogy MacGowan’s sister, Siobhan, said that despite growing up in England her brother’s “veins ran deep with Irish blood”, and he found his spiritual home in Tipperary.
“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 recalled MacGowan’s receiving a lifetime achievement award from Higgins on his 60th birthday. “He cried,” she said. “He dreamed of one day being a teller of stories and singer of songs. When the president put that award within his hand, he knew he had achieved that dream.”
The singer’s widow, Victoria Mary Clarke, said she felt like she had won the lottery when she fell in love with MacGowan. She urged compassion for addicts, saying there was no drug he didn’t take, but pointing to his battle for sobriety. “Next time you see someone who you think that guy is just an alcoholic, stop and give thought to it.”
Earlier on Friday crowds lined the procession route in Dublin. Some mourners threw flowers on to the carriage with the tricolour-draped coffin, others held aloft drinks in salute. People mined cobwebby memories for MacGowan anecdotes, some wild, others poignant, and many euphemising the alcohol and drug problems.
“I had to come,” said Judith Fitzgerald, 54. “It was the life, the energy, the words – they made you laugh and cry and dance.”
Uinseain de Búrca, 48, said MacGowan had soundtracked his life. “I never met him in the flesh but I feel like I knew him all my life.”
John Farrell, 47, sporting a mohawk and a T-shirt that proclaimed MacGowan a “20th-century paddy”, said he had lost a hero. “His music will live for ever.”
MacGowan was born in Kent and grew up in London, the son of Irish emigrants, and fused punk, folk and other influences into the Pogues and other collaborations that blended rebellion and nostalgia.
“He was the most unusual poster boy for a generation,” said Ian Davis, 60, who inhabited a London squat in the 1980s. “A lot of people there were lonely, lost, drinking far too much. There was comfort in hearing him, and pride too when English people also adopted him.”
Terry Whelan, 61, took a dawn flight from Scotland to say goodbye. “I’m going to follow the procession and then raise a glass to him in O’Donoghue’s.”
Fairytale of New York, a duet with Kirsty MacColl, is a Christmas staple but has never topped the UK charts. This week it climbed to third position, with a week to go before this year’s Christmas No 1 is decided.
