‘He wasn’t ready to give up fighting, but his body did it for him’ – Victoria Clarke reveals how she held Shane MacGowan’s hand as he died

“He was putting up a real strong fight,” she told Brendan O’Connor on his RTÉ Radio One radio show.

“He was trying very hard to breath. And they had put him on one of those masks to help him breath. I think he might have slipped kind of into a coma, because he didn’t look like he was there.

“I think he was aware we were there. Me and my sister held his hands, and the priest was saying the prayers. And he actually died during the prayers, which was good for him I think.”

She added: “He wasn’t ready to give up, he wasn’t ready to give up fighting, but his body did it for him. It was ‘we just can’t do this anymore, there isn’t enough fight’.”

Clarke said she brought MacGowan home after doctors told her they could not do anymore to help him.

“It was a massive shock. I actually thought I was going to die myself,” she said, adding she vomited and cried at the news.

“They basically said we’ve tried everything. We’ve had him on this oxygen thing, it’s not working. You’re going to have to say goodbye.”

Clarke said that she hoped MacGowan would pull through once again as he had been in intensive care several times before, including in Ireland, England and America.

The singer, who had been in a wheelchair for several years after injuring his pelvis in a fall, was diagnosed earlier this year with viral encephalitis, which leads to a swelling in the brain.

She said he enjoyed having a selection of visitors to him in hospital.

“Bono, The Edge, Mundy, Imelda, Daniel O’Donnell, Moya (Brennan), Aiden Gillen, Jim Sheridan, Bobby Gaspésie,” she said.

“We would have a laugh. We would watch Poirot, Fr Ted. We watched The Crown about 10 times, Downtown Abbey about 10 times. We spent a lot of time not just The Crown but also various documentaries about the royal family. He liked everyone, the Queen, Philip. He didn’t show much interest in Kate and William. He liked Diana a lot. He liked Charles, he found them very interesting.”

Despite his confinement in hospital, MacGowan kept himself amused.

“We managed to have a lot of fun, even though he could not smoke or drink. He said, ‘I don’t want to do that anymore’,” she stressed.

“Everyone though he was an alcoholic, but he didn’t want it anymore. Shane enjoyed drinking, sometimes he felt he needed it, sometimes he didn’t.”

The pair first met in a London pub when Clarke was aged 16.

“He had an interesting look. An old-fashioned Irish look. Always slightly tailored trousers. Something from the ‘50s he looked like,” she said.

“He just walked into the bar with Spider [Stacy]. I noticed them, they were dressed like in the Pogues. They both walked over to me. Shane said Spider wants a drink, it’s his birthday, buy him a drink. I said ‘f**k off’.” But they struck up a conversation.

“Then Spider invited me to see the Pogues. I thought they were quite shocking. I went with Spider to a gig. Spider sat down and looked like he was falling asleep. Shane said he has to do a gig, help him. I did.

“Shane offered me cab fare to get Spider home.”

Clarke said she had a boyfriend at the time but was still interested in the Pogues frontman.

“He was like an old-fashioned gentleman,” she continued. “I was trying to get off with him, but I did have a boyfriend. I tried to snog him in front of my mum on my birthday. He said keep it clean.”

They later went on a date to a northern soul dance club and romance blossomed.

“By seven in the morning me and Shane were sleeping on the floor, enraptured,” she said. “He was a really good dancer.”

Clarke is still coming to terms with her husband’s death.

“It’s a weird thing. You know if you have something and someone takers it away,” she said. “You can focus on your enjoyment of having it rather than not having it. It’s attitude.”

She added that MacGowan was spiritual: “He was religious, but religious in an unusual way, he liked to have religions combined. We have a buddha on the mantlepiece, Hindu stuff, muslin prayer beads, Madonna’s, Jesus. Ultimately love and forgiveness for everyone. Love is God, God is love.”

Clarke also said MacGowan liked praying for other people.

“I think it was more something he did for other people. He spent a lot of time praying for other people. Praying for people he hear on the news, people he knew personally,” she said.

“If somebody died on telly he’d pray instantly, I did point out they were actors.

“I’m not sure he prayed for himself. He prayed for me. He prayed for my sister. Even if I had a wisdom tooth, he prayed for that.

“He didn’t feel a need for redemption, he firmly believed God was about forgiveness and you’d be forgiven for everything.”

He has also left a celebrated work of music.

“He took great delight in the music he made,” she said. “ I know a lot of musicians and of all the musicians he was the only one I know who’d sit and listen to his own records and really enjoy them.

“He didn’t tend to have favourites, they were like children, they were creations, you don’t have a favourite.”