Margaret Barry

Margaret Barry (1917-1990) is perhaps the best known and most prominent of the early generation of banjo-wielding "tinkers." Born in Cork into a family of travellers/street singers, she taught herself how to play the zither banjo and the fiddle at an early age. At the age of 16 she left on her own after a family row and started her career as a street singer. In the early 1950s she moved to London and joined forces with fiddler Michael Gorman. The duo soon become an important part of London's Irish exile music community