Singer Kirsty MacColl killed by speedboat while swimming

The British singer Kirsty MacColl has died in a boating accident in Mexico. The 41year-old daughter of folk singer Ewan MacColl was struck by a speedboat while swimming off the coast, said a representative of her management company.

Kirsty McColl was best known for the 1987 Christmas hit, Fairytale of New York, which she recorded with the Pogues. Her other hits include Days, written by Ray Davies of The Kinks, and a version of Billy Bragg's New England.

McColl, a mother of two, had just made an eight-part series on Cuba for BBC Radio 2, in which she traced the development of Cuban music and interviewed musicians such as Ry Cooder and the Buena Vista Social Club. The first programme in the series was due to have been aired tonight, but it was unclear whether the broadcast would go ahead.

Kirsty MacColl's interest in Latin music was apparent from her last album, Tropical Brain- storm. It was a long way from her London origins, when she fronted a punk band called The Drug Addix, using the pseudonym Mandy Doubt.

Her first solo hit was the country-tinged There's A Guy Works Down The Chipshop Swears He's Elvis, but her most enduring work was her collaboration with Shane MacGowan and The Pogues on the seasonal perennial Fairytale Of New York. This Christmas the song will gain even more poignancy, as the pop world mourns MacColl's premature death.

Born in London on October 10th, 1959, MacColl grew up in Croydon with her mother, dancer and choreographer Jean Newlove. Her father, Ewan MacColl, was one of England's best-loved folk singers, but Kirsty MacColl soon made her own name as a singer-songwriter with an angelic voice and a sharp wit.

She married U2 producer Steve Lillywhite in 1984, and the couple had two children before splitting up in 1997.

Although she had a moderately successful career, it was felt by her peers and admirers that she never truly reached her potential. Her last album, Tropical Brainstorm, was highly acclaimed by both critics and peers, and she had discovered a passion for the bright, sunny beat of Latin music, leaving behind the stoic, grey landscape of English folk-rock.

Kirsty MacColl had always laughed at death; the sleeve notes for her 1995 greatest hits album, Galore, featured mock eulogies written by her peers.

She told an interviewer earlier this year: "Whenever I go into the studio I always operate on the principle that I might get hit by a bus tomorrow and I would hate the obituaries to have to read: `Her last album was her not very good album.' "

Her travels in South America helped her to overcome her marriage break-up. The fairytale has ended for Kirsty MacColl, but her bittersweet duet with Shane MacGowan will continue to light up Christmas for a long time to come.