Margaret Barry’s life and legacy celebrated in County Down

Margaret Barry left home at 15 with a banjo and a bicycle. Her love of music eventually took the Irish folk singer and banjo player to some of the world’s biggest stages, including Carnegie Hall in New York and the Newport Folk Festival in Rhode Island.

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She was well respected for her singing style. It was more of a street singing style. She was unique in her own way of going and very hard to replicate.

At Newport, Barry appeared on the same bill as Joan Baez and Bob Dylan. She became a prominent figure on the international folk scene during the 1950s and 1960s, and later influenced singers including Dylan and Luke Kelly of the Dubliners.

Barry was not born into a Traveller family, but she met a Traveller, embraced the lifestyle and became a strong advocate for Traveller culture. She eventually settled in Laurencetown, a small County Down village, where she was buried after her death in 1989.

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She had a very strong voice, and she kept her Cork accent right up until she passed away.

Family, friends and musicians gathered in the village at the weekend to remember her contribution to Irish music and her work promoting the travelling community. Her grandson Paddy Barry said the family had not understood the scale of her reputation while growing up. He described her singing as a distinctive street style that was difficult to replicate, adding that she retained her Cork accent throughout her life.

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Wherever she went she promoted Travellers, us, our community in a really positive light.

Traveller historian Ellen McDonagh said Barry was held in high regard for preserving Irish songs and stories and for presenting Travellers in a positive light. Barry was inducted into the RTÉ Folk Hall of Fame in 2019, in a ceremony presented by folk singer Peggy Seeger.

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She was a hero in a sense that she was so well known and she represented Travellers with such pride.