Tributes have been paid to the late John Dunford, the influential music manager who had recently qualified as a sea angling skipper.

As the Sunday Independent reports, Dunford loved the sea, bought a boat, and completed training with Bord Iascaigh Mhara (BIM).

Sadly, the 68 year-old father of four daughters from Mayo and living in Dublin passed away recently.

A celebrated music manager, sound engineer and co-producer, Dunford worked with many Irish musicians and set up the Hummingbird label.

He was best known as Sharon Shannon’s manager and long-time mentor and played a significant role in the early years of The Waterboys. He also worked with Planxty, Clannad, Moving Hearts, De Dannan and In Tua Nua among other groups.

A "mighty sound man, crew boss, travel companion, counsellor, fixer, co-producer, Irish trad music guide, partner-in-mischief, head, magic-seer and friend” is how Waterboys founder Mike Scott has described him on Twitter.

“He was the one with all the drive and passion that made my musical career what it is,”Sharon Shannon has said.

He was production manager, co-producer and location scout for The Waterboys, and located Spiddal House in An Spidéal, Co Galway, to record the Fisherman’s Blues album.

“A trip to Inis Mór on the Aran Islands, eating fresh lobster and drinking poitín in Nannie Quinn's house, and sailing back to Galway in a hooker the following morning in a force six gale,”was how he remembered that time in a subsequent interview.

Through his Hummingbird label, Dunford was involved in releasing albums by Sinead O’Connor, Donal Lunny’s Mozaic, John Spillane, The Monks of Glenstal and he worked with Philip King and Lunny on the 1991 /BBC/RTÉ/ Hummingbird five-part documentary “Bringing It All Back Home.”

Hailing from Castlebar, Co Mayo, John was the eldest in a family of five, and was immersed in music from a young age, playing with the La Salle group.

His brother, Steve, was also a musician and founding member of the group General Humbert, along with Mary Black. Steve Wickham’s tune “Dunford’s Fancy” on Fisherman’s Blues was named after Steve, who passed away several years ago.

Shannon has described John Dunford as a “natural leader with strong vision and powerful presence and huge charisma”, and “an amazing family man who was adored and idolised by his four daughters and his wife and his three grandchildren”.

He supported many charities in a quiet way, such as the Laura Lynn Foundation after his nephew Kevin died just three weeks short of his ninth birthday.

He was involved in setting up a school in Malawi, and he participated in the “Cycle for suicide” and raised funds for the Galway project, “Rosabel's Rooms”, named after the late Rosabel Monroe.

John Dunford is survived by his wife Hilly, and his daughters Becky, Hannah, Katy and Emily, brother Chuck, sister Derval and extended family.

Read The Sunday Independent here