Shane MacGowan

Both ‘lived on capital, not interest’, says the former Communard and recently retired vicar, who is bringing his Borderline National Trinket ‘stand-up memoir’ to Ireland

The Irish Times’s obituary writers have marked the deaths of more than 150 people this year. Here are 50 of the best known

Even as very young children growing up in Tunbridge Wells, we were sure of our roots. Identity is not a postcode, and Shane understood this more than most

From the inside story behind Shane MacGowan’s masterpiece Fairytale of New York to Christmas cooking with Mark Moriarty and Rory O’Connell

Deadlines, from filing copy to car park closures, leave this journalist late to the party

The Mass, the words and the music

‘It’s nearly Christmas and we’re 20 nautical miles off the east coast of Australia.’ Kate Ashe Leonard hopes to make it to Sydney in time

Town turns out to welcome singer home for the last time as wife Victoria Mary Clarke delivers eulogy

As Pogues singer's cortege passed Westland Row only the slow beat of a drum and the lament of an uilleann piper could be heard before the applause began

Funeral featuring some of The Pogues’ greatest hits concludes with The Parting Glass as thousands line streets for singer who died aged 65

Procession to be led by Artane Band and lone piper as horse-drawn carriage bears coffin ahead of Co Tipperary burial

Pogues frontman gave lyrical meaning to the tension of an Ireland that demands a complex present while yearning for a simple past

Radio review: Fault lines trump fairy tales as Newstalk Breakfast duo do their own thing

A transatlantic ballad on the life and death of a man called Big Jim Dwyer

The Pogues’ festive classic was pipped to the UK top spot in 1987 by Pet Shop Boys, but is now in battle for pole position with Wham! and Mariah Carey

London Irish gather to pay tribute to late Pogues frontman who gave voice to their identity

Untethered nationalism is heady and exciting right up to the point where it gets out of hand – sports fans know this better than anyone

MacGowan told the stories of people on the edges of society. He never shirked from their degradation, pain and humanity while also elevating their lives into something rich, beautiful and mythic

Pogues singer had a deep connection with Tipperary, and some of its pubs, where he said he felt at home

From the archive: In this Irish Times article from 1985, the late singer talks about the ‘Irish ghetto’, the BBC’s Pogues ban, and ‘despair, dullness and sobriety’