Biography

Originally from the southern shores of Lough Neagh in County Armagh and now living and working in Connemara, County Galway, Barry Kerr is a composer, multi-instrumentalist, singer and visual artist whose work is deeply rooted in Irish landscape, tradition and storytelling.
Over the course of an international career, Barry has toured extensively as a solo artist and collaborated with many of Ireland’s leading performers, including Steve Cooney, Cara Dillon, Lumiere and Dervish. His compositions have been performed and recorded by artists such as Damien Dempsey, Karan Casey, Flook, Jiggy, Beoga, Brian Finnegan, Damian O’Kane and Kate Rusby, becoming part of concert repertoires around the world.
Barry has performed on some of the world’s most prestigious stages, including Radio City Music Hall in New York and the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles, and has appeared on multiple arena tours. He also toured the United States as principal uilleann piper with Celtic Thunder and symphony orchestra under the direction of conductor David Brophy.
Alongside his performing career, Barry has made significant contributions to Ireland’s cultural life. As Artist in Residence at Belfast’s Duncairn Centre for Culture and Arts, he played a key role in developing and supporting the city’s thriving cultural scene. In 2020 he was awarded the inaugural Liam O’Flynn Award by the National Concert Hall and the Arts Council, leading to the creation of Cairn, released later that year. He was appointed Traditional Musician in Residence at University College Cork in 2023.
Barry’s diverse body of work reflects a continual exploration of music, place and visual expression. His releases include Boy in a Boat (2015), a collection of original songs; Castor Bay (2018), recorded with his sister Laura Kerr and guitarist Donogh Hennessy; Cairn (2020); and the multidisciplinary projects CEATHAIR and Continuum, which explore the relationship between visual art, storytelling and musical composition. His film Fuascail, a contemplative reflection on Ireland’s decade of centenaries, premiered on TG4.
His seventh studio album, Curlew’s Cry (2026), draws together original and traditional songs inspired by folklore, memory and the natural world. The album was named Folk on Foot‘s Folk Album of the Year in 2026, further cementing Barry’s reputation as one of Ireland’s most distinctive contemporary artists.

‘Kerr is at his best with songs rooted in the Irish vernacular. His own song ‘Of Sportsmen Bold’ was inspired by the long tradition of Ulster hunting songs, and could easily take its place amongst them. It is a rare writer who can craft a song that could instantly be labelled ‘traditional’, but Kerr manages it … Probably as a related skill, he has the gift of being able to sing traditional songs as if he had written them himself.’

Kara Shea O’Brien, Journal of Music, December 2025 (review of Curlew’s Cry)

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Connemara-based singer and artist Barry Kerr’s Curlew’s Cry (Barry Kerr, ****) is beautifully performed and sung … It draws on the mythology of the curlew, a bird of sorrow and longing, whose song opens the album, pulling back successive veils on songs like ‘The snows they melt the soonest’ (rivalling Dick Gaughan’s definitive account) and a stunning ‘Lullaby for a lost child’ – songs deep and wide, of great intensity and emotional heft. To close are two wonderful ballads, ‘You Rambling Boys of Pleasure’ (an inspiration for Yeats) and the lone voice and guitar of ‘Sportsmen Bold’, which seal the deal on a superb album.

Songlines, December 2025 (review of Curlew’s Cry)

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‘This has to rank as one of the finest folk albums I've heard this century. It has echoes of the heyday in the 1960s and 1970s when the likes of The Bothy Band, Pentangle, Fairport Convention, Planxty trod the boards of pubs and venues across the UK and Ireland. It should not come as a surprise that Barr Kerr’s latest album Curlew’s Cry (released 27th October) is of high quality, but this also appeals to every part of my personal music taste, with superb production, beautiful playing and vocals and harmonies from the very top of the tree … Curlew’s Cry appeals on many levels, especially its connection to, and expression of love for the natural environment in which we live. While the eloquence and the vocal delivery in these songs may carry a strong resonance of Dick Gaughan, it also establishes Barry Kerr in his own right as one of the finest singers of our times.’

John Reed, FATEA Music Magazine, December 2025 (review of Curlew’s Cry)

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‘His album Curlew’s Cry is a thing of great poise and beauty, an elegant elegy to nature, landscape and its associated folklore.’

Mark Radcliffe, The Folk Show, BBC Radio 2, December 2025 (review of Curlew’s Cry)

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‘An album for studied, silent speculation, sensuous and sensitive, profound and pensive, string laden and message rich.’

Seán Laffey, Irish Music Magazine, January 2026 (review of Curlew’s Cry)

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‘This album works on any level you care to mention. ‘When Autumn Comes’ ends the album with the sense of it’s time to be on the road again, the time for the folk singer to wander off and entertain us all. If Barry wheels into your town this Autumn, treat yourself and go and see him. The North of Ireland has been a rich vein of both singers and songs, Paddy Tunney, Sarah Makem, Len Graham, Robert Cinanmond, all carriers of a wonderful English language tradition. Where you might ask are today’s song makers who can tell us something deep and lasting about Irish experience? Go North and lsten to this album from Barry Kerr, it is an exceptional, original, artistic and enduring masterpiece.

Seán Laffey, Irish Music Magazine, July 2015 (review of Boy in a Boat)

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