Barry Devlin


Barry Devlin is an Irish musician, screen writer and director.

Early life

Devlin is from Moortown in Ardboe, County Tyrone. He began to train as a Columban priest, leaving to study English at University College Dublin, then joining a graphics company as a screenwriter.

Career

He was in the pioneering Irish Celtic rock band Horslips as bass player, vocalist and front man. After the breakup of Horslips, Devlin released the 1983 solo album Breaking Star Codes.
He has directed for the screen, producing a number of U2 videos in the 1980s. He has also been a writer for radio and screen, originating the radio detective drama Baldi and writing episodes for the television series Ballykissangel and The Darling Buds of May and the screenplay for the film A Man of No Importance. He wrote the screenplays for the five episodes of the television series My Mother and Other Strangers, which aired in 2016.

Family

His sister, Marie Devlin, is a school teacher and writer, publishing Over Nine Waves, a collection of traditional Irish myths and legends, in 1994. She was married to the Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney, from 1965 until the poet's death in 2013. One of his six sisters is Polly Devlin, the writer and broadcaster, who has been awarded the OBE for services to literature. Her first book All Of Us There is now a Virago Modern Classic. She has also made a documentary film The Daisy Chain and is a professor at Columbia University, New York.