She was married and divorced four times: Little is known of Hamilton's life, and only since the publication of the book The Mountain of the Women: Memoirs of an Irish Troubadour by Liam Clancy[1] has it been possible to reconstruct her most notable years.
Other notable recordings include Negro Prison songs, a compilation by Alan Lomax and The Bonny Bunch of Roses with Seamus Ennis.
Other Tradition artists included Ed McCurdy, Odetta, Paul Clayton, Jean Ritchie, Lightnin' Hopkins and Etta Baker.
She may have regarded Dónal Lunny as the successor to Liam Clancy as the next standard-bearer of the authentic Irish traditional music heritage.
The November/December 1982 issue of Folk Scene (Los Angeles) credits her with "the lion's share of the work" for the recording, in 1977, of the album The Gathering—released on the label Greenhays in 1981—which features the playing of Andy Irvine, Paul Brady, Dónal Lunny, Matt Molloy, Tommy Potts, Tríona Ní Dhomhnaill and uilleann piper Peter Browne.