Shane McGowan is dead.

[Heid the Ba]

Yes, he wrote that song we all like and was a loveable pisshead but he described Dominic McGlinchey as a "great man" so he can fuck right off. He also used to say that he would have joined the IRA but didn't have the guts; so a coward and a would be terrorist.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominic_McGlinchey
I accept this may not be a popular view.

[g-one]

A sad end to a sad tale.

[Мастер]

The BBC says he is a “lovable soul”. They did put it in quotation marks.

[Lianachan]

A sad end to a sad tale.

Exactly this for me.

[Richard A]

McGowan was not the only Irish republican who was persuaded that only violence would bring better treatment for Northern Irish Catholics. Although I do appreciate Heid's point of view. It's traditional for football fans across Britain to sing abuse at opposing fans ("We'll turn White Hart Lane into a public lavatory!"), but republicans in Scotland took it to a new level, even having a particular term of abuse for Rangers fans, until the Scottish football authorities finally did something about it. And Heid has friends who lost people during the Troubles, whereas I don't.

But still, I was a fan of the Pogues - although I never understood how Fairytale in New York, with its lyrics, became such a fixture of Christmas revelling. Maybe those lifting their 5th pint only focus on the ever louder all-pub refrain of "And the boys of the NYPD choir were singing Galway Bay". And yes, some of McGowan's songs openly celebrated the excess that finally finished him off. "I'll go into a bar and drink 15 pints of beer" or even, from the same song, the prophetic "I'll go in on my feet but I'll leave there on my back. But he did also give a voice to those society often ignores. "The Old Main Drag" is not elegant, but it makes the point - and one not a lot of others were making.

So yes, a deeply flawed man, but RIP Shane McGowan.

[Мастер]

Going private on this one.

[Lianachan]

It's traditional for football fans across Britain to sing abuse at opposing fans ("We'll turn White Hart Lane into a public lavatory!"), but republicans in Scotland took it to a new level, even having a particular term of abuse for Rangers fans, until the Scottish football authorities finally did something about it.

Both sides of that, entirely manufactured, fracture in Scottish society gave as good as they got. It’s unfair to single out “republicans” without, for example, acknowledging Rangers fans singing about being “up to the knees in fenian blood”.

[Heid the Ba]

Oh our lot are just as bad. It can be difficult supporting a team when you despise the majority of the other fans.

[Richard A]

But that is what true support for a team is about. I despise the fact that a fair few England soccer fans are on international police watch lists, while a large number of others have a penchant for getting drunk and smashing things up - with just about enough sense to do it after the game so they don't get to miss it. It's not as bad as it used to be thankfully, but I'm still not entirely sure I would want to be in town when England are playing away. But I still support the team - it's what you do.