Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Chat

Join the discussion and chat with other Mumsnetters about everyday life, relationships and parenting.

Original poster

Shane Macgowan funeral on live

209 replies

EachandEveryone · 08/12/2023 15:45

Im just warching its really beautiful. Sky news.

OP posts:
Thread gallery
7
KitchenSinkLlama · 09/12/2023 12:37

ChristmasTreeMagic · 09/12/2023 10:17

@Janiie why do you think renowned musicians & performers were so happy to collaborate & perform with him? His list of admirers from the highest echelons of music is seriously impressive

Shane understood & channeled the very particular experience of being Irish & being on the outside, mouring loss of country & culture & identity & he had such soul & humility doing so.

His voice & his lyrics & his compositions spoke so directly to millions of Irish & Irish descended & many others besides. We loved him for his ability to be human, to be flawed, to tap into our national psyche in his own unique yet somehow universal way.

He proudly revelled in his London Irish-ness. It would be a rare family here that didn't have someone or many someone's who had to leave ireland. They held a wakes for them before departure as everyone knew the likelihood of them ever coming home again was very very low

Shane made bring Irish cool at a time when it was not considered cool even in ireland at times.

He followed in the footsteps of James Joyce, Brendan Behan etc

I think having the President of Ireland attend your funeral & stellar musicians such as Nick Cave sing the song you wrote at your funeral would indicate that he was most certainly know & respected & revered for far more than (the wonderful) Fairy Tale of New York!

To be honest I was dismayed by how incredibly little attention his death got on MN - about 30 comments when there are threads about nonsense that run to hundreds of comments.

Brilliantly put.

I love The Pogues (they were playing when my DH proposed) and as someone with 3 Irish grandparents and one parent also born in Ireland, Shane makes me feel as though I'm Irish too.

His funeral was perfect.

LadyEloise1 · 09/12/2023 12:39

I hate the expression "Plastic Paddy"

If people had to emigrate because of economic necessity from Ireland, not out of choice, how dare anyone call their children or grandchildren etc "plastic paddys"
So derogatory.

ChristmasTreeMagic · 09/12/2023 13:18

I hate it too @LadyEloise1..
I admire irish emigrants who kept the culture alive in their new countries be that UK or USA, Australia etc. Most left with little other choice & it must have been unimaginably hard to have to leave everything you've known being simply to survive

Shane's music totally channelled that emotion & loss & despite it all lust for life- Singing, playing music, dancing & drinking to celebrate and to remember and to forget

ChristmasTreeMagic · 09/12/2023 13:18

Behind

Thedrownedprophet · 09/12/2023 13:18

As we're giving Glen Hansard a bit of love on this thread,

I have to remind everyone of how his mum took his Oscar off him and carried around in a plastic bag, taking it out to show the women at Bingo.

That cracked me up 😃

ChristmasTreeMagic · 09/12/2023 13:38

That's brilliant 👏 love the idea of her bringing the Oscar to bingo!

CuteOrangeElephant · 09/12/2023 13:55

This isn't the first time Nick Cave sang a song at a funeral.

He performed Into my arms at the funeral of Michael Hutchence.

Abhannmor · 09/12/2023 13:57

JaneJeffer · 09/12/2023 11:46

Never heard of it. Proving my point tbh.
Sure haven't I just told you about it you fecking eejit 😛

Cad é an Gaeilge ar ' ah now' ? Anyway ah now , I'm sure you're only joking. As many's the time before.

ChristmasTreeMagic · 09/12/2023 13:58
Is this the Dubliners / Pogues performance you're referencing @Janiie? Because if so I think you're utterly wrong- this is a wonderful collaboration ❤️

GB_1233_3dcc5eb5477f8a7f30e138c553044de7

https://youtu.be/uXmIk7dGOAI?si=0xAk6r9pqGPdXCRk

ChristmasTreeMagic · 09/12/2023 13:58

Sorry - link not working!

ChristmasTreeMagic · 09/12/2023 14:00

This one?

Abhannmor · 09/12/2023 14:05

ChristmasTreeMagic · 09/12/2023 11:29

Interesting question about U2.
I think they suffered by staying in Ireland but I absolutely consider them to be an Irish band & although they're not my type of music I admire them for their achievements & success. There's room for all really

U2 spent most of the 80s in the USA. Bono used to tell naive Yanks he was brought up in a war zone. Not a posh Dublin suburb.

Zonder · 09/12/2023 14:12

JaneJeffer · 09/12/2023 10:08

You just don't get him @Janiie

This. I've seen him live several times, with the Pogues and with the Popes. Amazing.

Watching the funeral now. Beautiful. Remembered by the best of Ireland.

Zonder · 09/12/2023 14:17

Janiie · 09/12/2023 10:37

Never heard of it. Proving my point tbh.

Show quote history

You not having heard of it doesn't mean it's not well known. It says more about you than Shane.

DeanElderberry · 09/12/2023 14:24

It was slightly odd watching the funeral, as I'd been at another, different, funeral in the morning and the priest who officiated at it and two of the priests who accompanied him were up there in the sanctuary with Fr Pat. I also have a box of Barry's teabags in my kitchen so the sense of being close to greatness was strong. Pity it was such a wet bleak day - if it had been dry and sunny I'd have gone to Nenagh to gawp, but didn't fancy having to walk into the town from one of the car parks they'd set up round the perimeter.

Shane McGowan was genuinely well-known in the town (by the pub-going sector of the population, not so much the get to the supermarket early brigade) and held in affection, as well as being regarded as a sort of awful warning of the physical damage addiction can do, but his London-Irish identity was also important.

Zonder · 09/12/2023 14:29

Touching to see how emotional the people taking part are. Camille O'Sullivan struggled to sing, and Aiden Gillen had to keep stopping to sniff in his reading.

Thedrownedprophet · 09/12/2023 14:38

Zonder · 09/12/2023 14:29

Touching to see how emotional the people taking part are. Camille O'Sullivan struggled to sing, and Aiden Gillen had to keep stopping to sniff in his reading.

I have such a soft spot for Aiden Gillen. He's wonderful. I remember seeing him, in the height of Game of thrones fame, walking out of arrivals at Dublin airport with Liam Cunningham and hopping on a coach to Belfast. No private car for them!

LadyEloise1 · 09/12/2023 14:39

Bono wasn't brought up in a posh Dublin suburb, he was brought up around Calderwood Road, just off the Willow Park estate, off Ballymun Avenue ( as it was known then, renamed Glasnevin Avenue ).
Terry Wogan grew up on Ballymun Avenue.
It was on the fringes of Finglas, Glasnevin and Santry and the houses were mostly built before the Dublin Corporation development of Ballymun.
It was probably considered to be a lower middle to middle class area.
Lovely people there - I have relatives living in the area.
Bono and his family now live in what would be considered "posh" Dalkey in a gorgeous house overlooking the Irish Sea.

Tippexy · 09/12/2023 14:42

LuluBlakey1 · 08/12/2023 19:53

I thought bits of it were very moving. His sister spoke very movingly and well. Johnny Depp's Irish accent made me smile. The musical performance of 'Fairytale of New York' was magical as was much of the music. There was so much respect and love shown for him......but bits of the service were ...... unusual. I cringed at the behaviour of some of the crowds in the streets, and the women clambering over the top of the pews in the church to dance at the front to Fairytale of New York and at his wife's 'eulogy' - rambling, no boundaries whatsoever about talking about other people and what might not be appropriate to say/share...but perhaps that was just how they were together, eccentric to the last. There won't be another Shane McGowan. RIP.

Yes, cringey is exactly the word that came to my mind while watching it, too.

IClaudine · 09/12/2023 14:44

ChristmasTreeMagic thanks for posting that link. What a great performance.

JaneJeffer · 09/12/2023 14:52

As many's the time before
Grin

IClaudine · 09/12/2023 14:52

I loved it when they clambered over the pews to dance! It was joyous.

As for his wife, she has just lost her soul mate of 35 or so years. Critiquing her eulogy is, to borrow your phrase, cringey.

hellesbells · 09/12/2023 15:00

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

ChristmasTreeMagic · 09/12/2023 15:33

@IClaudine you're welcome! It is a great performance from not only Ronnie & Shane but their blended bands - joyous I think is how I would describe it

Shane & the Pogues were the new wave of musicians reinterpreting these old songs which were often dismissed as irrelevant or uncool by younger generations until they came along.

My parents listened to the Dubliners & I listened to the pogues & suddenly here they were together ❤️

I don't recall U2 living in the US in the 80s but I was a teen & they weren't really on my radar. I went on a J1 in 1990 & they were huge there with The Joshua Tree. Sinead O'connor was dominating the airways too with nothing compares to you.

It felt great to be Irish there that summer!

I had the impression they went there to record albums but might have that completely wrong