Gerry Adams said Shane MacGowan’s music would “live forever” as he led emotional tributes at a star-studded funeral for the Pogues frontman in Co Tipperary.
Hundreds gathered inside the Saint Mary of the Rosary Church in Nenagh, while 30,000 lined the streets of Dublin to pay their respects to the musician.
MacGowan, best known for his song Fairytale of New York, died last week aged 65, after a fight with pneumonia. He would’ve celebrated his 66th birthday on Christmas Day.
Addressing the congregation inside the church, Mr Adams, a former president of the Sinn Fein political party, said: “Your music will live forever, you are the measurer of our dreams.”
“My words are words of gratitude, gratitude for Shane’s genius, for his songs, his creativity and his attitude,” he added.
Mr Adams said he was grateful for MacGowan’s “celebration of the marginalised, the poor, the exiled and the underdogs”.
Pirates of the Caribbean actor Johnny Depp, a close friend of MacGowan and his wife Victoria, read the Prayer of the Faithful in honour of the musician.
A record by Depp, who attended their wedding in 2018, was earlier placed as a symbol of MacGowan’s life at the altar. The musician loved his friend’s music and “guitar noises”, his wife Victoria said.
Almost everyone who attended their wedding came to the funeral, she added.
Also placed at the front of the church was the first Pogues record, a Led Zeppelin album, which he was said to have listened to extensively, as well as a flag of Tipperary, which was met with a ringing applause.
The Casio keyboard MacGowan used to write his 1990 hit Summer in Siam was amongst the symbolic items brought in to celebrate his life.
Australian musician Nick Cave, 66, performed the Pogues love song Rainy Night in Soho, while Mundy and Camille O’Sullivan sang Haunted.
U2 frontman Bono, who could not make the service, had his recorded tribute to MacGowan played out to the church.
Delivering the homily, Father Pat Gilbert said MacGowan had made Irish music cool around the world.
He added: “As teenagers, not being able to verbalise our uneasiness, displeasure, our uncomfortable assessment of what was happening all around us, we found an outlet, a channel, a conduit in the music and lyrics of the day.
“In the words of Dickens, ‘It was the best of times and the worst of times’. But the music and the lyric were tremendous, and Shane was the master of them all.”
Earlier in Dublin, MacGowan’s remains were carried in a glass horse-drawn carriage with his coffin adorned with an Irish tricolour flag and featuring a black-and-white photograph of the singer in his youth.
Members of the public threw flowers and musicians played A Pair Of Brown Eyes and Fairytale Of New York as the funeral procession passed Sweny’s pharmacy in central Dublin, which featured in James Joyce’s Ulysses.
Among those who turned out to pay their respects was Aidan Grimes, 60, who described MacGowan as an icon.
He said: “I remember the first time I saw The Pogues in the Hammersmith Odeon in 1985. It is imprinted in my mind forever, just the madness and mayhem, the raucous nature of his singing and the music they were playing.
“I thought it was important to pay my respects. He was an icon of Dublin, just like Brendan Behan, Luke Kelly. His music will be listened to in 100 years’ time.”
Following the funeral mass, the public will also have the opportunity to pay their respects as the funeral cortege moves through Nenagh town centre from Church Road to Market Cross.
A private cremation will follow.
MacGowan was born to Irish parents in 1957 in Pembury, Kent, and he soon moved to rural Tipperary where he was immersed in a culture of céilí bands and showbands.
The Pogues frontman died “peacefully” on Nov 30 with his wife and family by his side, a statement from his relatives said.
He was due to celebrate his 66th birthday on Christmas Day.
