Margaret McNiff Locke – Melodeon Player

on in
Image courtesy of Old Time Records

Margaret McNiff appears in the 1901 census, living in Cornamucklagh North in Drumreilly – she was 15 at the time. Eleven years later, she would marry Michael Locke, also from Drumreilly, in Boston and they set up home in New Hampshire.

Margaret was a melodeon player and got a lucky break in the 1930s when she was noticed by Columbia Records and they asked her to record some tracks, some with Sligo fiddler Joseph Tansey and a banjo strummer named E. Colclough and some with her banjo-playing daughter, Mary McNiff Locke.

Find out more at ITMA
Margaret McNiff Locke - Image courtesy of Old Time Records
Image Courtesy of Old Time Records

For purchase details and recordings of similar artists, check out Old Time Records

Ward Irish Music Archives

Back to Rakes of Music Page