Samantha Barry: ‘Getting the keys to my New York apartment, I felt like a power bitch. I couldn’t dream that growing up in a council estate in Cork’

“Life hope and happiness” is the mantra of Samantha Barry — the editor-in-chief of Glamour magazine and “cute Cork hoor” — who shows us around her New York neighbourhood, and talks about making her life in the city and how confidence starts with being kind to yourself

Cork's Samantha Barry has been described by Anna Wintour as 'fearless'. Photo: Rose Callahan

Barry Egan

A bustling Friday evening in New York. The manager at the packed Casa Mono in Irving Plaza knows Samantha Barry instantly when we arrive. She is a regular, living just a short walk from the restaurant. There is a table held by the window; she asks if we can sit at the bar. Nothing is a problem for the disarming editor-in-chief of Glamour magazine. Ensconced by the bar — from where we can watch the chefs cook our dinner — she barely has a taste of her red wine before she is off and running with the first story of the night. Over the next three-and-a-half hours, the Cork woman will tell a lot of them with a gusto that belies her lofty position in American media.

In the week we meet, the sad news of journalist Charlie Bird’s death has just been announced back home. Barry offers her own Charlie Bird story. It’s 2004 and “Sam Barry is fresh out of a masters at journalism in DCU. I got a placement at RTÉ. I’m relegated to nights. It is obviously a very slow weekend and they put me on the Radio 1 bulletin, to write it and read it. There is nobody in, maybe one other person. I think it was a Sunday.