Shane MacGowan, longtime front-man of The Pogues, dies at 65, family says

Celtic folk-punk singer-songwriter Shane MacGowan, the beloved chain-smoking, hard drinking longtime front-man of The Pogues, has died at the age of 65, his wife Victoria Mary Clarke said in an Instagram post on Thursday.

"I don't know how to say this so I am just going to say it. Shane 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 has gone to be with Jesus and Mary and his beautiful mother Therese," Clarke said. "I am blessed beyond words to have met him and to have loved him and to have been so endlessly and unconditionally loved by him and to have had so many years of life and love and joy and fun and laughter and so many adventures."

"It is with the deepest sorrow and heaviest of hearts that we announce the passing of our most beautiful, darling and dearly beloved Shane Macgowan," Clarke said in a separate statement issued jointly with the singer's sister Siobhan and father Maurice. They said he died peacefully with his family by his side.