[media-credit name=”Carsten Thesing” link=”https://www.stern.de/lifestyle/leute/jock-mcdonald–punk-star-bei-badeunfall-gestorben-35933530.html” width=1440 align=”center”]
[/media-credit]
Punk Rock legend Jock McDonald—whose birth name was Patrick O’Donnell—has tragically died at age sixty-nine in what his bandmates are calling a “freak swimming accident” off Bundoran Beach in County Donegal, Ireland, on Saturday, July 26, 2025. McDonald had returned to Donegal in advance of a forthcoming tour when the incident occurred.
Local RNLI volunteers responded to an emergency call and pulled McDonald from the water around 5:20 PM, after which he was rushed to Sligo University Hospital, where he was pronounced dead shortly thereafter.
A founding member of the British–Irish Punk band The Bollock Brothers (formed in 1979), McDonald had built a reputation for bold, subversive creativity—famously covering Serge Gainsbourg’s ‘Harley David (Son of a B**h)’ and Alex Harvey’s ‘Faith Healer’, among other nonconformist favourites. His band released nine studio albums, four live albums, and twenty-eight singles, gaining cult status in Punk circles throughout Belgium, Germany, and the United Kingdom.
Tributes poured in from fans, fellow musicians, and family. Drummer Pat Pattyn shared via social media that the news came at the request of McDonald’s children, and asked for privacy during a deeply painful time:
“His family and all the Bollock Brothers are in shock… Rest in peace, my friend… I will miss you.”
Longtime bandmate Keith Bradshaw remembered McDonald as his best friend of forty-five years and a “true legend”. Meanwhile, McDonald’s brother Gerry O’Donnell mourned his passing, saying, “He was more than a brother to me” and reflected on the irony of his return to Donegal, the place of his earliest roots, just as his life was cut short.
The Rory Gallagher International Tribute Festival, which had welcomed McDonald in previous years, issued a statement affirming that “the music world will not be the same without him”, calling him “one of the great characters” in Punk’s global story.
McDonald’s sudden death marks the end of a singular career defined by iconoclastic energy and international velocity. He had been working on a new single and album at the time of his passing, plans now left unfinished.
