Feargal Sharkey reveals prostate cancer diagnosis after going to doctor for sore throat

24 May 2025, 10:16 | Updated: 24 May 2025, 14:07

Feargal Sharkey was diagnosed with cancer last year, the singer and environmental campaigner has revealed.

The former Undertones frontman said he initially went to the doctor regarding a sore throat, to later discover that he had cancer.

He said the issue was "resolved" a year ago.

Now, the legendary rock star turned bête noire of the water industry is encouraging other men to get checked.

“My doctor, being the beautiful, wonderful, awkward, cantankerous old man that he is, went, ‘Oh Feargal, by the way, you’re 65 now, I’m going to run the full battery of tests, ” he told the Daily Express.

“Two days later, it turns out, I began a journey which led to the [diagnosis] of prostate cancer,” he added.

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More than 44,000 men are diagnosed with prostate cancer each year in England. High profile figures including King Charles and former US president Joe Biden are among those to have been diagnosed recently.

Mr Sharkey urged: “Now, for one in eight of you, you will be put in the same journey I’ve had, and it’s quite astonishing to think that in this country right now, one in eight men have prostate cancer.

"Most of them don’t even know it. So go and have the blood test and if you’re lucky, you’ll walk away.”

Sharkey has previously spoken to LBC for a special series - Feargal on Friday - about water pollution in Britain.

In one edition, he travelled to Swinton in South Yorkshire to test the River Don, a 70-mile stretch of water running through cities such as Sheffield, Rotherham and Doncaster, which became a pillar for transporting goods such as steel during the Industrial Revolution.

There, he tested for a litany of bugs and pollutants, once again placing the Environment Agency and the regional water company, Yorkshire Water, under the microscope.

And the findings made for truly grim reading. The most concerning result Mr Sharkey uncovered was when testing for phosphates in the river.

In the final edition, he travelled to the Cunsey Beck in Cumbria, a stone’s throw away from the home of celebrated author Beatrix Potter, to analyse the Cunsey Beck.

"This is one of the most legally protected bits of countryside in the whole of western Europe - [but] phosphate’s a big fail,” Feargal lamented, before adding that: “Lake Windermere is quite frankly turning stagnant because of phosphate and because of sewage.”