Pogues frontman Shane MacGowan left his entire estate to his widow, Victoria Clarke, following his death in 2023 at the age of 65, according to High Court documents obtained by The Sun.
MacGowan, who died from pneumonia, had his estate valued at £4.8 million in England after already leaving Victoria £730,000 in a separate will covering his assets in Ireland. Combined, his fortune totalled more than £5.5 million.
The will was read at the Brighton District Probate Registry on Wednesday, where Victoria, 59, was named as the sole executor.
Had Victoria died before Shane, his estate would instead have passed to his novelist sister, Siobhan MacGowan, 63.
The document was signed in Dublin on March 14, 2018, and was also used to distribute MacGowan's estate in Ireland, which similarly went to his widow. Shane and Victoria married in Copenhagen eight months after the will was signed, at a time when it described her as his "partner."
Fairytale of New York royalties
One of Shane's main sources of income throughout his life was royalties from his 1987 duet with the late Kirsty MacColl, Fairytale of New York. The song was written by Shane and his Pogues bandmate Jem Finer, and its origins reportedly trace back to a bet between the pair that they could not write a Christmas song that was not "slushy," according to NME.
The Pogues were formed in London in 1982 and became known for fusing traditional Irish folk music with punk energy, with MacGowan as their distinctive frontman and lyricist. Fairytale of New York, a duet built around a bickering old couple on Christmas Eve, cemented the band's reputation and became one of the most played Christmas songs in Britain.
The Performing Rights Society does not publish exact royalty figures, but the Independent estimated in 2021 that the song generates around £400,000 a year from radio play and streaming.
What a number one could be worth
Music copyright lawyer Brad Banias told the Metro in 2023 that experts predicted royalties could exceed £500,000 if the song ever reached Christmas number one. He said he would expect a 10 to 20 per cent royalty rate split between the band, songwriters MacGowan and Finer, and Kirsty MacColl's estate.
Despite being repeatedly named among the nation's favourite Christmas songs, Fairytale of New York has never topped the UK singles chart. On its release in 1987 it reached number two, kept off the top spot by the Pet Shop Boys' cover of Always On My Mind.
MacColl died in a boating accident a week before Christmas in 2000. MacGowan died in 2023 after an eight-year battle with a brain condition, and his death prompted an outpouring of tributes alongside a renewed campaign to finally send the song to number one in honour of both singers.
The single built strong momentum and reached the top five, but stalled at number six, with Wham!'s Last Christmas taking the top spot instead. Fairytale of New York continues to top polls of Britain's favourite Christmas song, having been voted the nation's number one choice in a YouGov survey in 2020.
