STAGE SCHOOL LEGEND and Dublin icon Billie Barry died peacefully this morning at a Dublin nursing home.
She founded the Billy Barrie school in 1964, and tens of thousands of students have passed through the doors in Fairview in the fifty years since she first started teaching classes.
So many people – mainly inspired by the yearly Christmas appearances on the Late Late Toy Show – wanted to join her school and tap and sing their way into people’s hearts. And today, following the sad news of her death, they’re remembering their childhood dreams of becoming a Billie Barry kid.
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And then of course there’s the ones who did make it. They’ve been paying tribute today.
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Five-year-olds Carmelia White and Frances Shanahan and four-year-old Colleen Dillon were introduced by Uncle Gaybo as “tiny tots” from the Billie Barry School during the 1981 Toy Show.
And Samantha Mumba was a Billie Barry kid before she embarked on a pop career.
In the Irish Times just last week journalist and author Anna Carey wrote about the upcoming 50th anniversary of the Billie Barry Stage School and remembered her time as a student there:
