I recently had the opportunity to talk to Vince Power, the man behind one of north London’s most famous music venues, The Mean Fiddler. It was good for a man of Irish descent from the English midlands to hear what the Irish community in London is up to now.
Many say Power revolutionised the music scene in Britain with the success of the Reading, Leeds and Phoenix festivals. He also promoted some of the biggest names in world music such as Prince, Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Paul McCartney and Lou Reed.
I wanted to talk to Power about how his career in London had run in parallel with the ever-evolving Irish community in London.
The Mean Fiddler in Harlesden, north London, was opened in December 1982. By coincidence, the 40th anniversary of its opening coincided with the release of the 2021 UK census data which generated articles detailing the decline of the Irish population in the UK.
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Born in Kilmacthomas, Co Waterford in April 1947, Vince Power moved to London at the age of 15. He was one of an estimated 100,000 Irish people who moved to Britain in the 1960s with London, as it is now, a favoured destination.
He initially moved into his Aunt Kitty’s boarding house in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire and “got the start” at Woolworths where Kitty was a supervisor before he moved down to Kilburn in north London, which at that time had an expanding and identifiable Irish community.
Power met his wife Teresa at the 32 Club in Harlesden and they married when he was 18. He opened The Mean Fiddler in December 1982. The north London country music venue was modelled on American honky-tonk bars in Tennessee, but the venue enjoyed little success in its early days. This changed when Power took a chance on his cellar man Dave Phillips. Phillips was plugged into the local music scene and Power gave him the responsibility of booking the acts for the venue. This led to bands such as Foo Fighters as well as famed Irish artists such as The Pogues playing the Mean Fiddler.
Although many people have described Power as an astute businessman and entrepreneur, he says he would be more comfortable with the title of “lucky chancer”.
When The Mean Fiddler opened its doors, the number of people moving to Britain from Ireland was rising and numbers were returning to the same high levels as the 1960s. Power recognised that Irish people coming were different to those who had travelled before. They were more likely to come from cities than rural communities, they were more likely to have further and higher education qualifications and their aspirations were much wider than simply “getting a start” in one of the local factories or on a building site.
The Irish in London today are as visible as they once were, according to Power, but they now live everywhere. The Irish who once stuck to Cricklewood, Kilburn, Camden and other well-known hotspots are not as concentrated as they once were and the Irish community is now scattered across London and further afield, he says.
If you tried to map the Irish community in London today and establish how that community comes together, you would end up with a multitude of overlapping Venn diagrams. Where the circles overlap you will find the social, cultural and sporting venues: GAA clubs, Comhaltas branches, business groups, Irish language groups, music venues, religious institutions and a host of support services.
The strength of the Irish community has always been its ability to develop, maintain and grow the support networks necessary to thrive while retaining cultural links and traditions with Ireland, Power says.
He agrees that the more networked a community is, the more resilient it becomes.
Power believes that if one community in London has shown its resilience over the past 60 years, it is the Irish community.
Not every Irish person who has made the trip across the Irish Sea has flourished, he says, and there are many complex reasons why. Recognising this and making sure people are connected so they can build networks and get support and advice from organisations such as the London Irish Centre, Irish Cultural Centre in Hammersmith, ICAP and the network of Irish Associations across Britain have been been invaluable, we agree.
That is even more true now that census data shows a decline in the number of Irish-born people living in Britain and also that the Irish community in Britain is ageing.
In June 2006, the Mean Fiddler was sold to property group Derwent Valley Central. Although pubs no longer act as the employment exchange for Irish people in the way they did in the 1960s, and the building and care sectors are no longer their main source of employment, and the Irish may not be as visible in London as they once were, they are still, thanks to sporting, social and heritage organisations as well as Power’s music venues, just as connected.
- Chris Egan was born in Coventry in 1968. His dad moved to the city from Castlelough in Portroe in Co Tipperary at the age of 19. His mum moved to the city with her sisters from Ballywogs, Co Donegal when she was 14. Egan is the lead commissioner for strategic growth and infrastructure at Warwickshire County Council and is regional photographer for The Irish Post.
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