Packie Byrne, who has died aged 98, was one of the the best loved of the Irish singers and musicians who became part of the British folk scene. A highly skilled musician on the tin whistle, Packie was also a singer, with a repertoire that ranged from humorous songs to classic ballads, and a storyteller with a wealth of tales from his native Donegal. In his 60s, Packie played the part of Dr Carmody in Ken Loach’s film Black Jack (1979). They wanted a musician with an Irish accent, who could handle horses and who was – as Packie recalled – “a damned good liar”.

The youngest of three children, Packie was born in the “townland” or hamlet of Corkermore, in Co Donegal. His parents, Connell and Maria Byrne, both sang traditional songs, and neighbours would visit for evenings of music, singing and dancing. It was there that Packie picked up his repertoire of songs and tunes. Leaving school aged 14 – he had been one of 120 children in a single classroom – Packie worked on the family farm. At 20 he made the first of many visits to England, working in a variety of jobs – at Corby’s steelworks, the railways in Kettering and as a Betterware salesman.

The wireless and modern dance bands in Donegal had widened Packie’s musical horizons. He learned to play the saxophone, and in England won a prize playing an Irish tune that Norrie Paramor’s band couldn’t master. Paramor advised him to freelance, and Packie played in several bands, making occasional appearances with Jack Payne and Max Jaffa.

Returning home at the outbreak of the second world war, Packie again worked on the family farm and as a cattle drover, but also performed in local theatrical productions and in a comedy and music duo. Back in England by 1943, he failed an army medical and instead joined the Home Guard.

Throughout the 40s and 50s, Packie travelled between Ireland and England, where he worked on building sites and farms, busked before cinema queues and sang in concert parties. During a three-year period when he was hospitalised with TB, he renewed his interest in traditional song and music. He won several singing competitions in the late 1950s, and then the All Ireland competition in 1962 and 1963. His singing was frequently broadcast by Radio Eireann.

In 1964, when the great fiddle player John Doherty backed out of a festival at Cecil Sharp House, the headquarters of the English Folk Dance and Song Society (EFDSS), Packie filled his place. His songs and tunes, combined with his stage presence and humour, quickly endeared him to the folk enthusiasts and, within a week, he was gigging at London folk clubs. Soon after, he became a full-time folk singer.

In the late 1960s, Packie lived in Manchester, where he formed an occasional duo with the uilleann piper, Felix Doran. In 1969, the EFDSS released an album of Packie’s singing and whistle-playing. Folk clubs and concerts took him from Penzance to Scotland, but in 1971, Packie returned to London, where he worked in a solicitor’s office until retirement.

Packie’s song repertoire had sometimes been considered rather lightweight, but his album Songs of a Donegal Man (1975) secured his reputation as a highly accomplished singer of classic ballads. In the year of its release, he teamed up with the Californian harpist, Bonnie Shaljean, and together they performed at clubs, concerts and festivals, and on radio and television, and made two albums, The Half Door (1977) and Roundtower (1981).

At the age of 70, Packie retired from singing and playing and moved permanently to live in Donegal. The retrospective album Donegal and Back! was released in 1995. His autobiography, Recollections of a Donegal Man, was published in 1989, followed by a collection of his stories, My Friend Flanagan, in 1996. Packie’s singing was also included in The Voice of the People (1998), Topic Records’ landmark series of traditional music albums.

• Packie Manus Byrne, folk singer and musician, born 18 February 1917; died 12 May 2015