(Dublin) Shane MacGowan, lead singer of Celtic punk band The Pogues, has died at the age of 65 after a long illness, his wife announced Thursday.

“Shane […] left to be with Jesus and Mary,” his wife Victoria Mary Clarke wrote on Instagram.

Shane MacGowan, who had been hospitalized several times since July, was born in England in 1957 to Irish parents.

In 1982, he founded the group The Pogues. He then played Irish ballads in pubs performed at 100 miles an hour by musicians cheerfully mixing Irish rhythms and punk energy.

Combining Celtic legends and drunkenness, The Pogues became the political voice of young Irish immigrants in London in the 1980s, anti-Thatcher and anti-censorship.

The Pogues’ biggest commercial success was Fairytale of New York, a 1987 duet between Shane MacGowan and Kirsty MacColl that became a Christmas classic tinged with Irish folklore.

Shane MacGowan was known for his songs chronicling the lives of the Irish and the Irish diaspora.

“Shane will be remembered as one of music’s greatest lyricists,” Irish President Michael D. Higgins paid tribute in a statement. His songs were “perfectly crafted poems,” he added.