Margaret Barry

Margaret Barry (1917–1989) was an Irish Traveller, traditional singer and banjo player. Biography Born Margaret Cleary in Cork into a family of Travellers and street singers, she taught herself how to play the zither banjo and the fiddle at a young age. At the age of sixteen, after a family disagreement, Margaret left home and started performing as a street musician. In the early 1950s, she moved to London, originally to appear on a TV series called The Songhunter, produced by a young David Attenborough. Attenborough described in recent years how Barry’s striking wild, toothless appearance and her out-of-tune banjo playing prompted a volley of angry complaints about Irish tinkers being allowed on the TV. Barry became a well-known name on the London folk scene in the 1950s where, with her distinctive singing style and idiosyncratic banjo accompaniment, she was frequently accompanied by the fiddler Michael Gorman. Her singing and banjo playing became a major influence on the younger generation of ballad singers in Ireland and the UK, including Luke Kelly. She performed in the Carnegie Hall and the Rockefeller Centre in New York. One song for which Barry is particularly noted is "She Moved Through the Fair". Asked by an interviewer, Karl Dallas, whether she had learned it from her family or from other Travellers, she replied cheerfully, "Oh, no. I got it off a gramophone record by Count John McCormack". The accompanying book to the Topic Records 70 year anniversary boxed set, Three Score and Ten, lists Her Mantle So Green as one of the classic albums and "The Factory Girl" from Street Songs and Fiddle Tunes of Ireland with Michael Gorman is track 9 on the third CD in the set.