Former Undertones frontman Feargal Sharkey has revealed he was diagnosed with prostate cancer last yet.

Speaking to the Daily Express, the punk icon and environmental campaigner explained that he was diagnosed with the disease after a GP visit for a sore throat, adding that it was “resolved: a year ago."

“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 said.

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

“Had it not been for that random visit to my local GP," he continued, "I would never have known that I was at that point carrying prostate cancer, and if it had not been seen to, it could have been a very different ending and a very different outcome to my life.”

Sharkey urged men over the age of 45 to get a blood test for the disease, which can be treated easily in its early stages. “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,” he said. “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 was the frontman of Derry punk band The Undertones from 1975 to 1983, singing on their iconic tracks ‘Teenage Kicks’, ‘My Perfect Cousin’ and ‘Wednesday Week’. He went on to form The Assembly with Vince Clarke of Depeche Mode and Erasure, as well as developing his own solo career.

In recent years, the singer has also been vocal in the political movement for clean rivers and environmental protection.