Pat Egan: ‘I wouldn't want to be going into the music industry today'

The legendary music promoter says the greatest advice he ever got was from Cork promoter, Oliver Barry

Pat Egan for This Much I Know

We were a Second World War family. My two sisters, Margaret and Carmel, and my brother Jim were born during the war. I was born in 1946, the year after the war ended. My father had disappeared to England during the war because there was no work in Ireland — except for one night, the night I was conceived. He never came home after that. I never met him.

The children didn't have a tough upbringing because we didn't know what tough was.. but my mother had a very tough time. Thankfully, she came from a very big family, and they were very good to her.