Shane MacGowan was one of the great bards of Tipperary and of our time

We all change through life. Before our eyes we saw the changing face of Shane MacGowan.

The youthful punk, playing a piano in Fairytale of New York, to photos of a stouter man living in Dublin 20 years ago and playing festivals in Tipperary, to the smiling, thin artist surrounded by friends in hospital this year.

He shared the years with us. An artistic sort, his appeal to many was how he weaved a unique blend of poetic lyrics with a hint of the fiddle, bodhrán and whistle. The energy was one we all shared.

Knowing the air and the fields as well as the pubs and the ways of Tipperary meant he stood apart and placed him in the pantheon of the Clancys, Kickham, Raymond Smith et al.

Tipperary gold, if ya like. Everyone felt like they knew the poet, and many shed a tear at his passing. His father was a Dub, his mother from Tipperary.

An avid reader from a young age, MacGowan’s life was full of complexity he had to make sense of. While he was of Tipperary and Ireland, he was also of London and England.

Rural life mixed with a true dirty auld town. As a child, Shane attended a private school in England, and won a scholarship to Westminster. A rebellious youth, he became a punk rocker before The Pogues went huge in 1984.

Red Roses For Me, their first album was a complex mix of Fleadh Cheoil type rhythms with hard sounds, soft sounds, fast songs, slow songs, jigs, reels, clapping along and shouting all fitted easily together.

No one in Tipperary outside of the Nenagh hinterland had heard of him at this stage, but theLondon music magazines loved it. Fast forward twenty years and Shane MacGowan was a big name said to be living in a hotel in the famed Temple Bar.

He was said to be hanging out with the singer called Huey of the Fun Lovin Criminals in Eamon Dorans or drinking on a Thursday or Friday and Saturday night in Nenagh with the local lads.

Nearly twenty years later again and it is the week of his funeral in Nenagh. No doubt he will get a massive send off on Friday.

This week I spoke to Liam Hogan, who is a hurling supporter of Kiladangan, a Shannon Rovers fanatic, a GAA writer and a music fan from MacGowan country.

“I passed their house every day for years,” he says. The Ballinderry resident continues: “The actual house is on the bounds between Kiladangan and Shannon Rovers. I think the side of the road the house is on is Shannon Rovers country.

“Back in the forties Carney, which is the name of the area, had their own GAA club which was popular until the board decided on a one club one parish determination.

“His mother was Theresa Cahill from Carney. He used to come back to her homestead during the summer. He wrote that fantastic song The Broad Majestic Shannon which includes place names like Glenaveigh which would be just down the road from where he stayed during those summers.

“Finnoe would be a mile down the road from the other side of that house and he talked about men bringing cattle to the fair at Shinrone.

“The line about hurling the tin can down the road was another great line. It is a song I often find on YouTube, maybe of a Sunday morning, when nothing on the radio would tickle my fancy and I type it in. I’d be very fond of the Liam Clancy version of the song,” Liam Hogan says.

Looking back through the repertoire, many tunes had a sense of place.

A misty morning by the Albert Bridge in London was recalled in a song, Siam in Asia too, and of course The Broad Majestic Shannon that Liam loves so much not to mention that familiar hum along tune, recalling the band playing at Christmas time in New York City, USA.

For many in Tipperary he was one of our own, and he could be from any rural village in Tipperary, sitting at a bar counter and calling for another round.

No doubt he could be cross, contrary and cool at the same time. He had a distance and a closeness. His way appealed to many because they knew his raucous ways with the drink and his shyness if he didn’t have it.

The lyrics were like poems. The beat is always complex yet complementing the Irish rhythm and way in The Pogues’ songs. In truth, the songs were gold and a lifeline to many.

Pain, whiskey, romance, loneliness, heartbreak, fighting, roaring and every kind of a thing could be found in his tunes. In some ways he was a very accessible artist as we all knew the places he frequented. We got the songs.

Liam Hogan says Shane MacGowan was often found around Nenagh and the environs: “He was very much associated with Kennedys of Puckane which was mentioned very fervently by Christy Moore in some recordings.

“He was said to spend some time in Hannigans of Kilbarron as well. Everyone wanted to be in his vicinity but I, being a non-drinker, didn’t frequent the pubs when I was young so I didn’t meet him there,” he says.

Philly Ryan in Nenagh is the undertaker chosen to take charge of the funeral. The poet drank in Philly’s bar and shared the hours away with friends and companions.

Puckane, the current home of the Dan Breen cup, will always be famous for being the real homeland of Shane MacGowan. Over the years he gigged many times across the county.

Nenagh pubs were his regular haunts and he often sang there. He played gigs in Shinrone and the Feile back in the day.

He was said to have stopped in bars in Borris and Upperchurch village in 2001 on his way to playing on the big stage at the famous Ned of the Hill festival.

Late starting, the gig ran extremely late in the old school punk rocker tradition. As time moved on in later years Shane MacGowan’s health deteriorated and friends from Nenagh, Dublin and everywhere else visited him in hospital in recent months.

Bob Dylan mentioned him from the stage when he played recently in Dublin and paid him a visit. Around the world they mourned when he passed away.

He is mourned in Tipperary. A photo surfaced recently of Shane with a shovel on a building site in London in the late 1970s as a young man earning a day’s wage.

No doubt it fuelled his art as he wrote songs about it. Especially in England in the 1980s when the Irish were seen as problematic bomb makers, The Pogues offered a confidence to the Irish there, which wasn’t easy with political tensions at the time.

The songs of freedom, the songs of lonely London streets, the songs of Broadway and the hopes of having an 18/1 winner were all part of his repertoire.

MacGowan got old Ireland, and the people in old Ireland got him. We think of duets he did with Kristy MacColl, Sinead O’Connor and Ronnie Drew. All gone but still a song away.

The Fairytale of New York will keep going like Charles Dicken’s A Christmas Carol or Bing Crosby’s White Christmas.
There in the ether. Like Shano.

‘And the next time I see you we’ll be down at the Greeks; There’ll be whiskey on Sunday and tears on our cheeks; For it’s stupid to laugh and it’s useless to bawl; Bout a rusty tin can and an old hurley ball’