Keith Barry

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Keith Patrick Barry (born 2 October 1976) is an Irish illusionist, mentalist, hypnotist, magician and activist for the elderly. He grew up in Waterford, Ireland, and started loving magic at age five after receiving a Paul Daniels set. He began performing semi-professionally at 15 and learned tricks from a book called Magic for the complete Klutz.

Barry studied chemistry at NUI Galway, graduating with honors in 1998, but left science in 2000 to pursue entertainment and motivational speaking. His TV career began with Close Encounters with Keith Barry (2003–2005). He then appeared in the MTV special Brainwashed (2004) and Keith Barry Live With Friends (2005). A four-year deal with CBS followed, leading to the special Keith Barry: Extraordinary (2006). The show later aired on The CW and in other countries.

In 2007, Barry and his manager were injured in a car crash, but he returned to the stage later that year. His TED talks, starting in 2004, are among the most viewed ever. He also did The Escape Live on ITV in 2007, a live special famous for a dramatic escape from a shed rigged with explosives.

Barry has appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show seven times and The Paul O’Grady Show four times. He led the Discovery Channel series Deception with Keith Barry, which began as a pilot in 2010 and aired as a four-episode season in 2011. He toured with his live show The Asylum (2010–2011) and later The Dark Side (2013). In 2014 he starred in Brain Hacker on TV3. Between 2015 and 2016, he was the hypnotist on the ITV game show You’re Back in the Room, and also appeared in the Australian and US versions.

In 2018 he returned to prime-time TV on RTÉ1 with a New Year’s Eve special, followed by The Keith Barry Experience in 2019. His book Brain Hacks, published in 2021, reached No. 1 in Ireland for best-selling non-fiction paperback, and a second series of The Keith Barry Experience aired in 2022.

As an actor, Barry appeared in CSI: Miami in 2006. He also hosted Deal or No Deal Ireland in 2009. After his grandfather was attacked in 2009, Barry and his father campaigned to stop elder abuse and defend the elderly at home.