With his broken teeth and large ears, Shane MacGowan, who has died aged 65, might have seemed the most unlikely frontman for a pop group. But the Pogues never set out to become teen idols. They grafted punk style and attitude on to the raucous end of Irish folk music, as typified by their heroes the Dubliners, and Shane, in particular, gave the band a reputation for drunkenness.
Just like the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem, who revolutionised Irish folk music from the distance of the New York diaspora, the first-generation, London-based Irish community spawned the Pogues. Indeed, MacGowan astutely observed that the band could not have originated in Ireland.
