Shane MacGowan: One year on

Christmas is as synonymous with Shane MacGowan as he is with the Nenagh area.

He loved this time of year, and loved nothing more than to return to the place he called home to spend Christmas with family and friends. As his good friend Tom Creagh of Nenagh remarked this time last year: “If you were to offer him ten million dollars to sing ‘Fairytale of New York’ in New York for Christmas, he would have turned it down to be home with his family in Carney or up in the 'Mines. That was Shane MacGowan.”

Tom said those words in December as Tipperary mourned the death of one of its most famous sons. The funeral that followed underscored the esteem that Shane was held in worldwide.

The year that followed saw several moves at local level to honour his legacy. The first of them came from Shannon Rovers - of which Shane's great-grandfather John Lynch was a founding member - announcing in January the sale of a commemorative jersey printed with a photo of the singer and lyrics from ‘The Broad Majestic Shannon’. The jersey proved very popular and in November, Rovers announced the sale of another jersey, this time a Tipperary jersey also emblazoned with MacGowan and his lyrics.

KILBARRON FESTIVAL

The Lynch homestead at Carney Commons was to lend a key resonance to honouring the MacGowan legacy in 2024. Plans progressed in nearby Kilbarron for a festival celebrating Shane's local lineage and the songs written by him.

Central to those plans was the memorial erected in the village with the lyrics of ‘The Broad Majestic Shannon’ inscribed on it. Work on its installation had begun on November 30, the day that Shane died. The memorial has since attracted a great many visitors to the village, among them a couple who got engaged at the site in March.

The festival took place in August and saw large crowds gathering in Kilbarron from all over the country for a weekend of live music. Among those in attendance were Shane's sister Siobhán and his Mulvihill cousins.

Siobhán, wearing the commemorative jersey launched by Shannon Rovers in January, formally dedicated the memorial to her brother. She laid red roses to symbolise the Pogues' first album, ‘Red Roses For Me’, and in memory of the boy the Lynches used to call the ‘Little Man’.

The Lynch home where Shane's mother Therese grew up and where he spent his childhood holidays was lovingly recreated in the village hall.

It featured the cottage kitchen where he sang his first song in front of uncles and aunts. The festival also involved a workshop on Shane's life in the hall, where a number of local people told great stories from his childhood holidays.

SONGSMITH: THREE CHRISTMASES

Shane's life and times were commemorated in pictures with the publication in September of a book, ‘Séan MacGabhann/Shane MacGowan: Songsmith’. It featured a collection of many previously unpublished photographs taken by local photographer Pádraig Ó Flannabhra.

Very fittingly, the collection was divided between three Christmases, Shane's favourite time of the year. The first tranche of photos came from Little Christmas 1986 and the now legendary Pogues concert in Kennedys of Pocán.

The second set came from another Christmas 18 years later in 2003 when Shane was firmly established on the world stage, famed mostly for his Fairytale classic. He was home again for the festive season and Pádraig somehow persuaded the star to sit for a series of portraits in his Silver St studio. The portrait session subsequently became known as ‘The Twelve Shanes of Christmas’.

The third and final section of the highly-commended book came from Shane's funeral and farewell on December 8 last year, when he took his final journey through the streets of Nenagh following his funeral at St Mary of the Rosary Church, where celebrities from all walks of life came to pay their respects to the wordsmith and lyrical songsmith.

TWO MURALS IN NENAGH

In Nenagh, Shane was remembered with the creation of two eye-catching murals. The one at Emmet Place was formally unveiled on a remarkably sunny day in October when a large crowd gathered to enjoy music from local musicians as well as Sharon Shannon, Mundy and Camille O'Sullivan.

This MacGowan mural was commissioned by Tipperary Co Council and created by Clonoulty artist Neil O'Dwyer. He told those gathered that his mural sought to illustrate a “mature and thoughtful Shane performing on stage”. Shane in the mural was inviting viewers to guess at what he might be thinking.

The artist chose the background colours to represent the punk genre that Shane became so synonymous with. The Celtic shield represented protection but also Shane's love of ancient Ireland. The red rose was another reference to The Pogues' debut album, released 40 years previously that month.

Other features of the mural included Kirsty MacColl - with whom Shane sang ‘Fairytale’; his wife Victoria and sister Siobhán - both of whom spoke at the unveiling - and his maternal relatives the Lynchs.

Also in October, a mural depicting different stages of MacGowan's life was created on the gable of Philly Ryan's pub by Sligo artist Nik Purdy. The images were chosen by Philly, a close friend of Shane's for almost 40 years, and proprietor of the pub that remains renowned as the star singer's favourite haunt on his returns to Nenagh.

Philly reckoned MacGowan spent around 20 of his last 30 Christmas Eves in the Nenagh pub. He would often be there to ring in the new year too, sometimes to sing a couple of songs, mostly just to join in the company of the pub where he felt most at home.

In the aftermath of Shane's death, the Silver St pub became something of a mecca for Pogues fans, who came to see the captivating array of photos and other memorabilia inside, some of it signed by the singer himself.

Philly told of how people from all over the world visited his pub throughout the year, and he saw the merit in dedicating a mural to his legendary friend outside.

These initiatives, coupled with several notable songs and poems written over the course of the year, have helped preserve the memory of Shane MacGowan and ensure that his spirit lives on for many more years to come.