Joseph McNabb was born in Portaferry, County Down, about thirty miles outside Belfast in 1868, to Captain James McNabb and Ann (Shields) McNabb.  He was one of eleven children.   He attended St. Malachy's College in Belfast.  Upon graduation he entered the Dominican novitiate, and made his final profession in 1884.  He resumed his studies at the Louvain in Belgium, earning his Licentiate of Sacred Theology in 1888.  He returned to England and taught at Hawkesyard.  He became Prior at Leicester.  Was introduced to Hilaire Belloc.  Very active. Sent to London. Became a fixture on the streets of London for decades, Father Vincent was an ascetic and a prophet, a theologian and a writer, a teacher and a preacher, a debater and a Thomist and, to many, quite possibly, a saint. 


Holding forth weekly from the platform of the Catholic Evidence Guild at Hyde Park, he professed Truth in a manner all his own.  Known for his worn Dominican habit, his heavy-booted trudging and his many capabilities, he was considered by G.K. Chesterton, “spiritually the greatest man in England at this time.” He engaged in debate with the likes of G.B. Shaw.  He sought the advancement of Distributism and the Catholic Land Movement.  He was outspoken in his defense of the unborn, and against contraception, at a time when these were just emerging problems.  He was ardently pro-family. 

He died in London in 1943, perhaps the best-known Dominican Friar of the twentieth century.