Radio review: Celebrating the life and legend of Shane MacGowan one year on

Shane MacGowan: The Old Main Drag, Radio 4

Who knows where the time goes? A year ago – November 30 2023 – singer and songwriter Shane MacGowan died.

It’s hard to believe it’s a year since those pictures of crowds lining the streets of Dublin and Tipperary, and the well of love that flowed, and the stars at the funeral, and the music in the church – Fairytale of New York – that made the funeral feel more like a celebration.

So take a journey through the life of MacGowan in the company of Irishman, journalist and observer Sean O’Hagan.

His life story is seen through the prism of his songs – the lyrics that caught the essence of who he was… an artist of contradictions, says O’Hagan.

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MacGowan was fiercely Irish, although he was born in Tunbridge Wells in Kent, and a dedicated hellraiser who wrote some of the most romantic songs of modern times.

His wife Victoria and his sister Siobhan both speak. The latter looked back to an Irish upbringing in England and the draw of the family home in Limerick – the setting that inspired The Broad Majestic Shannon.

It’s a longing for homeland that deepened with distance: the rusty tin can that stood in for an old hurley ball; the hiding from the Rosary – they hid, said Siobhan, because that rosary would go on for an hour.

Now all the great aunts and uncles are gone. Shane’s hurling ball is there, but now he’s gone too.

We are whisked back to another London and what it was like to be Irish in the 1970s there – the casual racism, the beatings.

O’Hagan has his own memories of hearing the Pogues in Brixton in 1983.

Victoria remembers sitting beside David Bowie at a gig. But the welcome mat wasn’t always rolled out and there was a reference to the time Planxty musician Noel Hill called them “a terrible abortion” of Irish music.

Nick Cave, Ronnie Drew, Bono, David Simon speak about his songs. And yes, there was a lot of darkness.

Victoria said he was drawn to people who lived on the edge – those that people turn their backs on – the people betting; the junkies; the pimps.

“He had a genuine affection for them and real, real compassion,” she said.

This is well worth a listen.

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