Bob Dylan played Dublin's 3Arena last Thursday, and by all accounts it was a great performance by the recent Nobel laureate.

Dylan made the most of his trip to Dublin by catching up with an old pal - Shane MacGowan of The Pogues on Sunday.

The Pogues opened for Dylan in the late 1980s - without their frontman - and it seems that the songwriting pair have stayed in touch ever since, as according to The Irish Sun, Dylan invited MacGowan to his hotel for a meal.

His manager Joey Cashman told the paper: "Bob was very keen to meet up with Shane when he was in Dublin and his people were on a fair bit trying to set it up. There’s a lot of respect there and Dylan was the one who booked the Pogues to open for him back in the day, even though Shane didn’t actually make it! I have a theory that Dylan didn’t realise Shane never made it out to the States because the band were so good without him. That tour was crazy and I became good friends with Dylan’s son Jesse along the way.

"Dylan had his people get in contact and Shane was reluctant because he wasn’t feeling well but then he decided he wanted to go, he couldn’t miss out on the chance. We went to the hotel and let reception know that Shane had arrived. Bob was downstairs within ten minutes. So we had a meal in his hotel on Sunday. It turned into a late one.”

He added: "Dylan asked Shane how long it had taken to write ‘Fairytale Of New York’ and Shane muttered, ‘Around 15 minutes’. Shane doesn’t really like people making a fuss over his songs, a lot of musicians are like that, but they were chatting away. They’re both very into their poetry. Dylan named himself after Dylan Thomas, which is why he spells it that way, so they were deep in conversation for ages. It was a fascinating evening and Shane really enjoyed it. The two lads were in top form. It was a once-in-a-lifetime kind of evening.”

See a pic of their meeting below: