Shane’s farewell to be organised by his friend and favourite barman
Michael D Higgins expected to be at funeral this Friday
SHANE MacGowan’s funeral will be directed by his favourite Tipperary publican, who is also an undertaker and a friend of the late singer.
Philly Ryan, from Nenagh, told the Irish Mail on Sunday he will be ‘looking after [MacGowan’s] last journey, sadly’.
It is understood at this stage that the family are aiming to have the funeral this Friday, and it is hoped President Michael D Higgins will be in attendance.
‘It’ll be all in Nenagh,’ Mr Ryan said. ‘It’ll be cremation I would imagine, because his mother [Therese] was cremated.’
Shane MacGowan’s mother died in a car accident on New Year’s Day 2017, aged 87.
The Pogues’ founder and frontman spent his first six years in his mother’s family home in Carney, Co. Tipperary, and regularly returned there after his parents moved the family to England.
His parents eventually moved back to Silvermines, in Tipperary, and over the years Philly Ryan’s Pub, in nearby Nenagh – where he maintained longtime friendships and was even allowed to sleep on occasion – became the singer’s favourite watering hole.
Publican Mr Ryan said his other job as a funeral director meant early mornings for him, but, he added: ‘Shane did not want to know about the next morning.
‘But you couldn’t be rude to him, because he was so nice. He wouldn’t
‘Money on counter – and Shane asleep on couch’
come out until late and then he’d want to stay late, so I used to say to him, “Look, leave a light on, throw something on the fire and help yourself.”
‘And I’d come back in the morning and the money would be lined up along the counter and Shane would be sleeping on the couch.’
MacGowan had only been in the pub a handful of times since the pandemic but was a regular visitor before that.
‘He’d just be looking to play a game of pool with one of the locals, just sitting around chatting, whiling the time away,’ Mr Ryan said. ‘It was his downtime. It was his special place.’
And MacGowan came into the pub ‘every Christmas Eve without fail’, which Mr Ryan said ‘set off Christmas in my place’.
‘Just to have him on the premises, the buzz level went up from 50% to 200%,’ Mr Ryan said.
‘There would be a few autographs and that at the end of the night but he didn’t mind because he was happy with the locals.
‘And by his 20th Christmas Eve there, it had kind of all fizzled out, bar maybe a few visitors who might get excited. But he still signified Christmas for us there.’
MacGowan would often ring in the New Year in the pub as well, Mr Ryan said.
‘He’d be doing the rounds, sitting drinking away and chatting with his crew and I’d shout in “Shane, we’re on.” He’d just come through the bar, I’d give him the mic, he’d do the countdown, “Happy New Year” and that was it.’
The people of Nenagh ‘didn’t really push’ Fairytale of New York on its composer, Mr Ryan said, adding: ‘But the song would be played… it was Christmas Eve after all.’
The publican was friends with
MacGowan for decades – even meeting icons like Nick Cave and Johnny Depp through him – and said his pal was the ‘epitome of a normal person’ despite his fame.
Aged 18, Mr Ryan and a friend went along to one of the MacGowan family’s famous Christmas parties, when The Pogues were ‘in the peak of their powers’.
‘We were looking in the window and next thing the door opens and Shane says, “What are you doing out there? Get in here!” And in we went and it was heaven.’
A few years later, MacGowan put Mr Ryan on the guestlist for a week of sold-out Pogues shows in Kentish Town, when he was living in London for a few years.
He remembers it as an ‘amazing, mad time’, but said his colleagues on the building site took some convincing that he was really friends with Shane MacGowan.
‘I was working on the reconstruction of King’s Cross after the fire [in 1987] and we were all sitting up at lunch time. Next thing a taxi came around and I spotted Shane in
the backseat and he waved.
‘He got the taxi to do the loop around and three minutes later it pulled up and Shane said “Philly, get in!” And the lads sitting with
me were fit to be picked up off the floor. They couldn’t believe it! He was such a generous, normal, down-to-earth fella.’