Ireland

Music entrepreneur Vince Power’s funeral hears of a man who made the world a better place

Founder of the Mean Fiddler Group was buried in his native Co Waterford

Vince Power, the man behind one of north London’s music venues, The Mean Fiddler in Harlesden. Photograph: Chris Egan
Vince Power, the man behind one of north London’s music venues, The Mean Fiddler in Harlesden. Photograph: Chris Egan
Ronan McGreevy
Sat Mar 23 2024 - 14:32

Vince Power was described as his funeral mass as a man who “worked and worked” his way out of poverty in London to become a successful musical entrepreneur and businessman. He died two weeks ago at the age of 76.

Power turned down a chance to go to Mountbellew Agricultural College and left his native Waterford as a teenager to emigrate to London in the early 1960s.

He built his fortune through a chain of second-hand furniture stores before setting up the Mean Fiddler Group in the 1980s with a small music venue in Harlesden, north London.

Power set up the London Fleadh in the 1990s to bring Irish music to a larger audience and then the Fleadh Mór in 1993 which brought the likes of Ray Charles, Van Morrison and The Pogues to Tramore Racecourse. He was also responsible for the Reading Festival, Hop Farm Music Festival and the Benicassim festival.

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His daughter Sharon, one of eight Power children, recalled how her father started with a two up, two down which did not even have a kitchen sink in south London and gradually was able to buy a three-bedroom house in Stonebridge for his growing family.

“Dad worked so hard building a life. Bit by bit, day by day, he scratched his way out of his Irish poverty, up to church on Sundays and then to Sunday school and afterwards to have the Irish hammered into you,” she said.

In his early days operating from the Kilburn High Road he was known as the “man in the van”.

Another daughter, Nell Power, spoke of her father’s love for music and his passion. “He was an extraordinary man. To say he was strong-willed and independent feels like an understatement,” she said. “There wasn’t much he needed to be afraid of.”

Much of his fighting spirit came from his mother, Bridget. She had thought him resilience and to be a fighter, Nell said, adding that every day her father got up and faced the day with optimism, positivity and belief.

“Anything is available to you. You just want to want it enough and keep moving forward. He had this way of getting things that seemed instinctual and effortless. He never ran out of new ideas. He’d rather than everybody had a good time,” she said.

His friend and mass concelebrant Fr Brendan Crowley described Power as “Newtown’s most famous son”. They had both been in London in the early 1960s today.

The world that Power was born into in 1947 was completely different from the one that he left, Fr Crowley said. When a person is born, they have only two things to do in life – make the world a better place and keep good company.

[ Vince Power: Waterford-born ‘Godfather of Gigs’ who rocked the UK music scene ]

Looking back on Power’s life, it was indisputable, the priest said, that Power had achieved both of those things. He approached life with “great kindness, empathy and enthusiasm” who looked after Irish people who had fallen on hard times.

Power’s wicker coffin was brought into All Saints Church in Newtown, Co Waterford, to the strains of Ray Charles’ I Can’t Stop Lovin’ You. The funeral service finished with a rendition of The Parting Glass by singer Mary Coughlan.

Ronan McGreevy

Ronan McGreevy

Ronan McGreevy is a news reporter with The Irish Times