A musician from Northern Ireland has broken the Guinness World Record for the longest busk.
Martin 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.
He had some company along the way and he used the feat to raise money for a local Christmas toy appeal.
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.
