Musician with broken thumb busks his way into record books

A musician from Northern Ireland has broken the Guinness World Record for the longest busk.

Marty Rafferty, from County Armagh, performed for 24 hours on the trot, breaking the record just after midday on Thursday.

He began at midday on Wednesday and with a plan to strum his last chord at 18:00 BST on Thursday, he could end up beating the previous official record by six hours.

After he broke the record, he said he is "buzzing" and plans to keep going.

Mr Rafferty said that the unofficial world record is 26 hours and he said he's going to go for "30 hours" to "hopefully wipe" the two records out.

"The hardest bit was probably the early hours of this morning, I didn't realise how cold it would get get ... that was tough".

The record was not the only thing he broke, because Mr Rafferty broke his thumb last week, making his achievement all the more impressive.

He said that his brother came to the rescue with jackets to keep him warm.

He has used the feat to raise money for a local Christmas toy appeal.

James McGrath, who is compere for the event, said he had known Marty for years, and "he's all about persistence and getting things done".

"For him, it's all about the mindset," he added.

Fiona Kelly, from the charity the West Armagh Consortium, said: "I'm so proud of Marty and the Orchard County Band. What they have achieved is unreal – and what they have done to raise the profile of the appeal is phenomenal."

Organiser Liam White said the idea grew out of a plan for a fundraising concert.

"Then we thought about a buskathon, and then the world record was mentioned," he said.

"That night, I made an inquiry with Guinness World Records, and the guidelines of how to do this arrived three months later.

"After that, there was no turning back."

The so-called 'buskathon' is taking place at the bandstand in Armagh's Market Street, and there were a number of rules Mr Rafferty had to adhere to.

These included:

• Not playing the same song within four hours of each other
• A 30-second break between each song
• Each song has to be more than two-and-a-half minutes
• It has to be videoed 24/7

He did not have to be constantly singing, but had to be playing an instrument on stage the whole time.

Addressing the crowd after completing the record, Mr Rafferty said he planned to go "the full hog" and play on for a total of 30 hours.

"A two hour gig to me is going to be quite short after this," he added.