Shane MacGowan, hard-drinking poet of The Pogues, dies at 65

FILE PHOTO: Shane MacGowan, former lead singer of The Pogues, performs during the Montreux Jazz festival in the [Miles Davis] Hall late July 15, 1995. MacGowan and his band The Popes were part of the 'Irish Night' during the festival. REUTERS/Stringer/File Photo

DUBLIN (Reuters) -Shane MacGowan, the London-Irish punk who transformed Irish traditional music with The Pogues and penned some of the 1980s' most haunting ballads before sinking into alcohol and drug addiction, died on Thursday. He was 65.

MacGowan brought Irish traditional music to a huge new audience in the late 1980s by splicing it with punk, and achieved mainstream success with his bittersweet, expletive-strewn 1987 Christmas anthem "Fairytale of New York".