Tag Archives: Fairytale of New York

Anyone seen Shane MacGowan’s Lee-Enfield?

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If you recall, Irish folk singer Shane MacGowan of The Pogues recently passed just before last Christmas.

Sadly, Shane’s gun is missing and MacGowan’s widow, Victoria Mary Clarke, is seeking its quiet return, no questions asked.

The gun is, in typical Irish fashion, not just any old Glock or Enfield. It’s a Lee-Enfield 303 and has the name H Munn etched on it.

Shane MacGowan of the Pogues with his Enfield 303

Supposedly it is from the 1916 Easter Rising (perhaps on the British side) and was given to MacGowan as a 60th birthday present by the singer-songwriter Glen Hansard of The Frames.

And with that, I leave you with The Pogues’ version of The Band Played Waltzing Matilda.

Bittersweet Fairytale

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As it is December, thoughts turn to Christmas songs, and one (slightly raunchy) example that I dearly loved for decades– and sometimes belted out when the eggnog flowed too hard– was Fairytale Of New York by The Pogues. I mean, being a quarter Irish, how could I not, right?

Sadly, news has come that flawed and often controversial Irish songsmith Shane Patrick Lysaght MacGowan, who co-wrote and performed the classic, has just passed at age 65.

And before you talk too much smack about him, listen to the Pogues’s version of Waltzing Matilda. 

Pouring out the nog for Shane.