by IrishRover Sun Oct 22, 2006 3:33 pm
Shane Patrick Lysaght MacGowan
He was introduced to alcohol at the age of five by his aunt on the promise he would not worship the devil; she also introduced him to cigarettes at the same time. MacGowan first tried whiskey when he was 10 and continued to drink heavily from that point on. He is widely considered to be severely alcoholic, and has suffered physically from his years of excess; he was notorious for performing while drunk, and for years it was impossible to find an interview with him in which he was not impaired. An example of this was on the BBC TV political magazine programme, This Week. While being interviewed by Janet Street-Porter about the public smoking ban in Ireland, MacGowan gave incoherent and slurred answers to fairly straightforward questions, much to the embarrassment of the politicians present, Diane Abbott and Michael Portillo. He has very few teeth (his dental situation has been part of his "reputation" for years) and is now bloated and pale, and speaks slowly and indistinctly, though he still demonstrates a sharp, and surprisingly lucid wit from time to time. "The most important thing to remember about drunks is that drunks are far more intelligent than non-drunks. They spend a lot of time talking in pubs, unlike workaholics who concentrate on their careers and ambitions, who never develop their higher spiritual values, who never explore the insides of their head like a drunk does." Shane MacGowan
Brendan Francis Behan
He had long been a heavy drinker (describing himself, on one occasion, as "a drinker with a writing problem" and claiming "I only drink on two occasions - when I'm thirsty and when I'm not") and developed diabetes in the early 1960s. This combination resulted in a series of notoriously drunken public appearances, both on stage and television. After 1957, his books consisted of transcriptions of tape recorded conversation or of works written long before that date. He died, aged 41, in the Meath Hospital, Dublin, and was buried in Glasnevin Cemetery. His last words were to several nuns standing over his bed, "God bless you, may your sons all be bishops."
[b]Shane Patrick Lysaght MacGowan [/b]
He was introduced to alcohol at the age of five by his aunt on the promise he would not worship the devil; she also introduced him to cigarettes at the same time. MacGowan first tried whiskey when he was 10 and continued to drink heavily from that point on. He is widely considered to be severely alcoholic, and has suffered physically from his years of excess; he was notorious for performing while drunk, and for years it was impossible to find an interview with him in which he was not impaired. An example of this was on the BBC TV political magazine programme, This Week. While being interviewed by Janet Street-Porter about the public smoking ban in Ireland, MacGowan gave incoherent and slurred answers to fairly straightforward questions, much to the embarrassment of the politicians present, Diane Abbott and Michael Portillo. He has very few teeth (his dental situation has been part of his "reputation" for years) and is now bloated and pale, and speaks slowly and indistinctly, though he still demonstrates a sharp, and surprisingly lucid wit from time to time. "The most important thing to remember about drunks is that drunks are far more intelligent than non-drunks. They spend a lot of time talking in pubs, unlike workaholics who concentrate on their careers and ambitions, who never develop their higher spiritual values, who never explore the insides of their head like a drunk does." Shane MacGowan
[b]Brendan Francis Behan [/b]
He had long been a heavy drinker (describing himself, on one occasion, as "a drinker with a writing problem" and claiming "I only drink on two occasions - when I'm thirsty and when I'm not") and developed diabetes in the early 1960s. This combination resulted in a series of notoriously drunken public appearances, both on stage and television. After 1957, his books consisted of transcriptions of tape recorded conversation or of works written long before that date. He died, aged 41, in the Meath Hospital, Dublin, and was buried in Glasnevin Cemetery. His last words were to several nuns standing over his bed, "God bless you, may your sons all be bishops."
