Shane MacGowan, Irish music legend, passes away at 65

Shane MacGowan, the singer-songwriter and frontman of The Pogues, has died at the age of 65. The news was confirmed by his wife in a statement released on Thursday.

In her post, MacGowan's widow remembered her late husband as someone "who will always be the light that I hold before me and the measure of my dreams and the love of my life and the most beautiful soul and beautiful angel and the sun and the moon and the start and end of everything that I hold dear."

"I don’t know how to say this so I am just going to say it," Clarke said. "Shane...has gone to be with Jesus and Mary and his beautiful mother Therese."

The Irish singer-songwriter, who is most known for being the lead vocalist of The Pouges and the singer of Fairytale of New York, a beloved holiday tune, was admitted to the hospital lately following an encephalitis diagnosis.

MacGowan was born in London in 1957 to Irish parents. He moved to Ireland in the early 1970s and formed The Pogues in the early 1980s.

The band fused Irish traditional music with punk rock and became one of the most popular bands in the world in the late 1980s.

The Pogues' most famous song is Fairytale of New York, which was released in 1987 and has become a Christmas staple in the UK and Ireland.

The song is a duet between MacGowan and Kirsty MacColl, and it tells the story of two young Irish immigrants who are struggling to make ends meet in New York City.

MacGowan is survived by his wife, Victoria May Clarke, and their three children.