[Source: Reuters]

Shane MacGowan, the London-Irish punk who transformed Irish traditional music with The Pogues and penned some of the 1980s’ most haunting ballads before sinking into alcohol and drug addiction, died on Thursday.

He was 65.

MacGowan brought Irish traditional music to a huge new audience in the late 1980s by splicing it with punk, and achieved mainstream success with his bittersweet, expletive-strewn 1987 Christmas anthem “Fairytale of New York”.

But he became just as well known for his slurred speech, missing teeth and on-stage meltdowns, with drug and alcohol abuse leading to the Pogues firing him at the height of the group’s success in 1991.

With his health near collapse in his 30s, few at the time expected him to survive into old age.

The singer died in the early hours of Thursday with his family at his side, his wife, sister and father said in a statement on X.

In an Instagram post featuring a picture of MacGowan smiling with a wine glass and cigarette, his wife Victoria Mary Clarke said he had gone to be with “Jesus and Mary, and his beautiful mother Therese”.

“Thank you for your presence in this world, you made it so very bright and you gave so much joy to so many people with your heart and soul and your music,” she added.

Born in the English county of Kent to Irish parents on Christmas Day 1957, MacGowan in his autobiography described early childhood summers spent at an Irish farmhouse with his extended family, drinking, smoking and singing traditional songs.