A rifle belonging to Shane MacGowan that is said to have been used in the Easter Rising has gone missing from the late Pogues’ singer’s home, according to his widow.
Victoria Mary Clarke noticed the weapon was missing last week and has appealed for its return.
The standard British army issue Lee-Enfield 303 rifle has the name H Munn etched on it.
It was given to MacGowan, who died from pneumonia last November aged 65, by singer Glen Hansard as a 60th birthday present.
A devastated Clarke told the Guardian that the loss of the rifle had compounded her grief.
“I looked everywhere, turned the place upside down and couldn’t find it. So it has actually gone,” she said.
She said the gun was displayed between the fireplace and a bookshelf in their home and was well camouflaged.
“I tend not to tidy up very much. I don’t spring clean, which means that for ages I don’t notice what’s there and what’s not,”
She has asked for it to be returned – no questions asked.
The rifle is thought to be valued at about £2,000-£3,000.
“The thing about Shane is that he wasn’t materialistic. The only things he ever bought really were records. He didn’t have many possessions. He had his crucifix and rosary beads and statues of the Virgin Mary, other than that he didn’t have possessions that were precious to him. But the gun meant so much to him,” the late singer’s wife said.
“I wasn’t entirely easy about having it in the house, but I definitely want it back. It’s probably the grief, where any physical thing that has an attachment to your loved one you hold on to – because you want to hold on to them.”
