PHIL Chevron, the guitarist for boisterous Anglo-Irish band The Pogues, has died at 56.

Pogues manager Mark Addis says Chevron, whose real name was Philip Ryan, died Tuesday in Dublin after being treated for head and neck cancer.

"After a long illness we are sorry to inform you that Phil Chevron passed away peacefully this morning and we all send our sincere condolences to his family," the band posted on their Facebook page.

The Dublin-born musician was a member of seminal Irish punk rockers The Radiators From Space before joining the London-based Pogues in the early 1980s.

The rumbustious band, fronted by singer Shane MacGowan, fused Irish traditional music, rock and punk into an exhilarating hybrid on albums such as Rum, Sodomy and the Lash and If I Should Fall From Grace With God.

Chevron wrote several well-known Pogues songs, including the Irish emigration ballad Thousands Are Sailing.

He is survived by his sister and his mother.