Shane MacGowan has been visited by his old bandmates following another update on his health.
The Pogues singer has been in and out of hospital in recent years, with his wife recently opening up about fearing ‘losing a person you love’.
MacGowan is of course best known as the lead singer of the Celtic punk band, co-writing the Christmas banger ‘Fairytale of New York’.
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It’s unclear exactly why the 65-year-old is in hospital the moment, but last Christmas he was hospitalised with life-threatening brain condition encephalitis.
Earlier this week, his wife Victoria Mary Clarke shared a heart-breaking post to Instagram, with a snap of the pair having a kiss in hospital.
She included in the caption: “But sometimes when you love very deeply you will find yourself facing terrifying fears of loss that can feel so big and devastating that you don’t know how you can survive them and you can’t imagine life without this person that you love.
“It’s in these moments when you are staring into the abyss that you have an opportunity to expand your consciousness beyond the limitations of your mind.”
And in a new update last night, Victoria shared a snap of MacGowan smiling in his hospital bed hooked up with a high-flow nasal cannula, which assists with breathing.
She wrote on X: “I just wanted to say a massive thanks to everyone who has been messaging me and @ShaneMacGowan and thank you @spiderstacy and Terry Woods for coming to visit him. Love and prayers for everyone who is struggling right now, hang in there!”
Spider Stacy and Terry Woods were both members of The Pogues alongside MacGowan.
Fans replied with their ‘best wishes’ to the pair, ‘sending love’ as they struggle with the star’s health.
Well, it’s exactly this time of year we begin to hear ‘Fairytale of New York’ on repeat, which was initially released all the way back in 1987.
While the song has never actually been the UK Christmas number one, it has been listed in the UK Top 20 numerous times – including every year since 2005.
Last December, the song was certified quintuple platinum in the UK for a whopping 3 million combined sales.
And The Irish Times report that the track earns MacGowan an estimated £386,000 each year in royalties.
The singer-songwriter once explained he never expected the song to be so successful, saying: “You could have knocked me down with a feather. It was a challenge Elvis Costello set us and it ended up being our greatest hit.”
Jess Battison