Waterford's Keith Barry recalls his first car and the Subaru that saved his life

Keith Barry has revealed that he will not be teaching his 17-year-old daughter how to drive because of the arguments it caused between himself and his father. 

The Waterford magician has shared his most fond and foul memories of the cars he has had throughout his life.

Keith learned to drive around the age of 21 as he was finishing college and knew he didn't want to work in Waterford so would need a car to get to and from work. 

His dad started to teach him how to drive but it didn't always go well. 

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"We were best buddies even back then but we killed each other when it came to driving. I remember very well exactly where we killed each other in two spots in Waterford. One was Bunker's Hill because he used to bring me there for my hill starts, which I got wrong every single time and another one was a junction down there near Poleberry. There's kind of a little hill down there. Ultimately, there were two hill starts, and I got them wrong nearly every time, which amounted to him shouting at me, me shouting at him, and also arguing a whole lot," Keith said. 

His first car was a medium-blue Citreon ZX that he bought himself from Pat McCarthy Car Sales in Waterford. 

He remembers taking out a €10,000 loan but he can't remember exactly how much he spent on the car. 

Keith did recall his first journey in the Citreon ZX and it was with his girlfriend at the time - who is now his wife - up the Comeragh Mountains. 

"I drove up the Comeragh Mountains, up to Mahon Falls and I hadn't been there since I was a child. I loved the Magic Tree. My dad used to bring us there when we were, I suppose, eight, nine, ten years of age. I just said to my wife,' right, come on, we'll drive up here and see, can we get the magic of the mountain to move the car. Is it real or not? That was my whole thing," Keith explained. 

ABOVE: A stock image of a Citroen ZX from 1994

In the Comeragh Mountains, there is a road that magically drives your car up a hill, even if the ignition is turned off.

It's a centuries old mystery in Waterford, that Keith wanted to check the validity of.

"It happens very slowly, but then all of a sudden, it seemed to slowly gain acceleration up the mountain," Keith said. 

Something that didn't happen as slowly was when the tyre blew out of the car as Keith was driving up to Dublin to get to work. 

He had been working in a Swedish cosmetics company at the time, inventing make up for women. 

"Just outside of Arklow, I got a blowout. There's no AA back then. It was literally old-school changing the tyre on the side of the road. The problem was this particular night, it was lashing rain and I was on my own but it was really dark. There's no lights on the road, so I had no light changing the tyre, that was the problem. I remember it took me somewhere between two to three hours to change the tyre because the bolts were on so tight. It just took forever, and it was in the dark and it was p*ssing rain and it was just a disaster zone," Keith said.

That wasn't the only car to have caused some trouble for Keith though. 

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Another was a "flashy gold" Subaru Legacy that he had bought for his dad in 2006 but Keith liked it so much he then bought it from his dad. 

"I remember it used to get a lot of attention just because it was bright gold," Keith said. 

Less than a year after buying it from his dad, Keith was in a head-on collision on the way back from a funeral.

"I had to be cut out of the car and my leg was completely demolished in that accident. It broke my knee, my tibia, my fibula, my metacarpals and my foot was dislocated, wrapped up around my shin, going the wrong way," he said.

"I do thank that car for saving my life because all the airbags went off and I would say, if I was in a lesser car, I'd definitely be dead right now," Keith added.

That gold Subaru Legacy is a car that really showed who Keith was in that moment of his life. 

"Simply because with the legacy that time I was headlining in Vegas and I was doing my CBS Show and looking back on it, it was probably the fanciest car I was in, but I'm not really one for fancy cars. But, you know, a gold legacy is definitely somewhat fancy. Let's be honest about it," Keith said.

Keith also had a Fiat van at one stage, which he now deems as quite a questionable choice. 

"I just look back at that going, 'what the f*ck was I doing driving a van?' I bought a van for myself and it was more or less to kind of transfer the props that I had," he said. 

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Looking back, Keith says he was in and out of the dealers all the time with the van giving him issues, but as he was in his early 20s at the time, he didn't really realise it was a problem. 

After a year of driving the van, Keith decided it was time to say goodbye. 

He can't fully remember what car came after that, but when asked what his dream car would be, he knew the answer instantly.

"Bugatti Veyron, straight away. I don't need something like that. That would just be if money was no object. If Santa Claus is going to bring me a present this year, what would I have? It'd probably be that," Keith said.

Unfortunately for Keith, Santa generally only comes to children but on the plus side, he really likes his current car. 

It's the new model Hyundai Santa Fe Calligraphy. 

"I really love it because it's kind of like they've changed the shape of the Hyundai Santa Fe. They changed the aspect and then even internally, you know, with cars in Ireland, like it sounds terrible, but I do like the comfy aspect of them. So like heated seats, heated steering wheel, it's just got all that kind of stuff," Keith said.

"I'm aware of trying to be efficient in regards to the environment and all the rest. So when I buy a car, I do tend to use them for longer than what an ordinary person would use them for. I don't change out my cars every single year. I like to drive them a lot. I don't need to be changing every single year or anything like that," he added.

Keith says that as much as the Subaru represented Keith in that moment of life, his current car is a true representation of present day Keith too. 

"The one I'm in now is a good, solid card. It looks nice but it's not over the top and it's efficient," he explained.

In terms of over the top, that is exactly what Keith will be doing with him upcoming tour 'Unhinged:25 years inside your mind.'

He will play the Theatre Royal in Waterford on February 28 next year. 

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"It's a brand new show and I suppose the major difference between this show and other shows is putting hypnosis back in the show. I haven't done hypnosis in over 10 years on stage. I'm also bringing my dad on tour, but my dad is dead, so we're going to contact my dad using a seance. I'm bringing his ashes on tour because that was his dying wish, was to go on tour and contact him using a seance," he said. 

Keith says his tour will be the most unhinged he's ever done with live animals also featuring. 

Every night, there will also be a group of five people on stage that will be hypnotised to become wolves, vampires, or anything else unhinged Keith can think of. 

There will also be an audience empowerment piece that will help people to get over a fear or give up a bad habit.

"The show's designed to make you forget about your everyday problems, forget about what's going on in the world, and just enter into a world where pretty much anything and everything can happen for two hours," Keith concluded.

Tickets for Keith's tour can be bought on his website Keithbarry.com or through the Theatre Royal.