Sarah Makem

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Sarah Makem (18 October 1900 – 20 April 1983) a native of Keady, County Armagh, Northern Ireland, was a traditional Irish singer.^[1] She was the wife of fiddler Peter Makem, mother of musicians Tommy Makem and Jack Makem, and grandmother of musicians Tom Sweeney, Jimmy Sweeney (of Northern Irish Canadian group Barley Bree), Shane Makem, Conor Makem and Rory Makem. Sarah Makem and her cousin, Annie Jane Kelly, were members of the Singing Greenes of Keady.

In the 1950s, song collectors from the United States toured Ireland recording its musical heritage. Makem was visited and recorded by, among others, Diane Guggenheim Hamilton, Jean Ritchie, Peter Kennedy and Sean O'Boyle. Her rendition of "As I Roved Out" opened the BBC Radio folk music programme of the same name in the 1950s.^[2]