"Margaret Barry, the Irish street singer whose interview with Alan Lomax is ref'd a couple of threads back, invariably sang to her own banjo accompaniment"
Margaret Barry's, as well as several other Travellers' styles of performance, was directly related to the fact that she was a street singer. The instrument was there to grab the attention of the punter in a public, and quite often noisy place. It was not, as far as we could make out, common practice for them to sing accompanied.
One Traveller we recorded who also sang in the street, to sell ballad sheets, (not with an instrument) described how he adapted his style to the length of the street in order to fit the song into the duration of his walk. He made a distinction between this type of performance and what he called 'fireside singing', that done at home among a handful of friends and family.
I am convinced that what is often referred to as the 'tinkers' style', particularly among women, is a result of the commercial side of singing.
Jim Carroll