My friend Bruce Scott, who has died aged 75, was among the greatest exponents of Irish traditional unaccompanied ballad singing, and a powerful force at the heart of Liverpool’s Irish community.

He was born across the street from Anfield football ground, the son of Bruce, a steel erector at the Liverpool docks, and his wife, Kitty (nee Westhead). He learned traditional Irish singing from his mother. He attended Priory Road school, in Anfield.

Bruce moved to Kirkby new town in 1957, and married Dot (nee Williams), a gym instructor and singing teacher. He was employed as a plumber and later in demolition, a hazardous occupation from which he was forced to retire in the 1990s following a number of serious workplace injuries.

From the 1960s he was prominent in the Liverpool folk scene. Unaccompanied singing in the Irish tradition was the style to which his mother introduced him, and he excelled at it. He joined Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann (the society of Irish musicians) at the Liverpool Irish Centre and began winning singing prizes and composing his own songs. Bruce and Dot visited Ireland frequently, singing in pubs and at festivals.

He also performed at the Singers’ Club in London organised by Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger, and at the Dublin club An Góilín, getting to know Mike Harding, Christy Moore, Peta Webb, Frank Hart and Pecker Dunne. In 1981 he composed The People’s Own MP, a tribute to the republican prisoner Bobby Sands, which was recorded by Christy Moore. A number of artists have recorded his Town of Tears, a lament for the tragedy of the Omagh bombing in 1998. At the launch of Liverpool’s Capital of Culture year in 2008, Bruce performed Amazing Grace.

Ten times winner of the singing in Irish competition and three times winner of the newly composed ballad at the annual Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann, Bruce received the Comhaltas lifetime achievement award in 2015.

He is survived by Dot (also known as Polly), by his mother, his children, Debbie, Tracey and Kevin, five grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.