Liam Teeling has shared the eulogy he delivered during his close friend Shane MacGowan’s cremation ceremony earlier this month.
Teeling, a native of Co Armagh who was raised in Dun Laoghaire and has lived in London most of his life, was publisher with Stiff Records when the label signed the Pogues in the 1980s.
Teeling and MacGowan went on to enjoy a relationship that was both professional and personal, Teeling told Sunday World. He had visited MacGowan just days before the Pogues frontman died on November 30.
Teeling was invited to deliver a eulogy to the gathering of just 30 guests at MacGowan’s cremation ceremony. In attendance were MacGowan’s wife Victoria Mary Clarke, his father Maurice, his sister Siobhan, and his longtime pal Johnny Depp.
In his eulogy that he’s since shared with the Sunday World, Teeling said he was "honored and privileged to have published every song that Shane wrote in his lifetime" and reflected on MacGowan's talent and craft.
“Knowing Shane as I did, it could be annoying when people referred to him only in terms of the drink, the muse, and the drunken ramblings," Teeling said in a portion of his eulogy.
“Talent is a God-given gift. It has nothing to do with the recipient. Many, many people are born with talent. No child was ever born with skill and craft.
“Shane worked religiously at his art, crafting like a sculptor to reveal the beauty within.
“I would often visit Shane at home, pushing the door open against the weight of envelopes in the hallway. I don’t believe he opened an envelope in his lifetime. If they were white, they were writing material.
“The flat was full of words and scribbles, on beer mats, torn cigarette packets and any handy surface — utter chaos.
"The only comparison I can make is Francis Bacon’s studio, where I once took a friend, and whose only comment was ‘how the f**k does he find anything?’
"Again, utter chaos.”
Teeling further told Sunday World: “Shane is up there with all the great writers and poets that came out of the Anglo-Irish community.
“He lived a lot of his life in England and he’s on a par with Oscar Wilde, Jonathan Swift, George Bernard Shaw, and so on.
“There should of course be a statue to him. Dublin would be a natural fit, so too would Nenagh. Why can’t there be two of them, like there is for Luke Kelly in Dublin?”
While the cremation ceremony for MacGowan was private, his funeral was indeed public and included a procession through Dublin before the funeral Mass in Nenagh, Co Tipperary on Friday, December 8.
MacGowan's funeral Mass featured live performances of some of his best songs, including a rousing rendition of "Fairytale of New York" that saw mourners dancing in the aisles of St. Mary of the Rosary Church.
❤️❤️❤️ https://t.co/p9JEUliAXw
— @victoriamary (@Victoriamary) December 12, 2023
MacGowan, 65, died at his home on November 30 following a long battle with illness.
The Pogues frontman spent a week in intensive care in December 2022 after being diagnosed with encephalitis, a condition that causes swelling on the brain, and was hospitalized again in July this year after a period in the ICU.
He was discharged from hospital in mid-November but died peacefully at home shortly afterward.
Comments