‘I’d be happy to sing for Pope if they ask me,’ says MacGowan

SHANE MacGowan says he would accept an approach to sing for Pope Francis at Croke Park this summer – although he has not been asked yet.

The Pogues frontman spoke out after singer Declan O’Rourke revealed he had been invited to perform for the Pope during his upcoming visit to Ireland in August. O’Rourke told RTÉ he was asked to sing ‘Rainy Night in Soho’ along with Finbar Furey and Shane MacGowan.

While O’Rourke said he had declined the invitation, legendary hellraiser MacGowan told the Irish Independent he would be interested in the gig.

“I haven’t been approached as of yet but if I was, yeah, I would probably accept,” he said of the Festival of Families concert on August 25 as part of the Catholic Church’s World Meeting of Families 2018.

The 60-year-old singer said he was “religious in the broader sense of the word”.

Asked what song he might consider singing, he paused before suggesting “probably something like ‘Danny Boy’”.

As to his opinion of Pope Francis, he said: “I think he is an unusually good Pope, meaning it’s good for a Pope to be unusually good.”

O’Rourke said he had declined the invitation on moral grounds over the Church’s clerical sex abuse scandals. “I felt that if this was going to be a big ordeal made of family and everything that some kind of gesture would have to be made in solidarity with the victims of clerical abuse.”

Organisers of the event could not be reached for comment last night.

Yesterday the Irish Independent revealed that opera superstar Andrea Bocelli is being tipped to perform as part of the event.