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Irish Millie has released \u201cAllison,\u201d the opening track from her acclaimed EP \u2018Between Then and Now,\u2019 and a song that traces the quiet beginnings of one of Canada\u2019s most exciting young voices in folk and roots music. Built around the intimate interplay of fiddle and guitar, \u201cAllison\u201d is a tribute to Sally Pirie, the fiddle teacher who first placed an instrument in Irish Millie\u2019s hands at age six and shaped the musical foundation that everything since has grown from.<\/p>\n
The 19-year-old singer, songwriter and fiddler from Peterborough, Ontario wrote the song as a thank you in melody form. Irish Millie studied with Pirie until she was 12 and later joined her teacher\u2019s beloved community band, The Fyd-l-Styx, a gathering of musicians of all ages devoted to old-time Canadian fiddle music and to playing for the love of it. When Pirie passed in December 2024, Irish Millie poured her gratitude into a jig written in her honour, then built a song around it so the tune could carry forward. \u201cAnd oh, the dancing in the rain, through the barn to western swing,\u201d she sings, \u201cand oh, the people they would sing, but you wanted your own jig.\u201d The refrain returns again and again to that single, tender idea of finding your own voice.<\/p>\n
That sense of legacy gives \u201cAllison\u201d its emotional weight, and it offers journalists a window into how a young artist becomes one. The song honours the teachers who give everything and ask for nothing, the people who steady you long before you stand on your own. The cover art, the view from a window onto Pirie\u2019s garden, captures that spirit precisely. Irish Millie has spoken of how her teacher treated her like one of her flowers, rooting her, watering her, and trusting her to grow in her own direction.<\/p>\n
The recording keeps that intimacy intact. Produced by Tyler Martin at Electric Alchemy in Peterborough and mastered by Gregory Pastic, \u201cAllison\u201d was crafted with restraint, letting the fiddle carry the memory and the story breathe. The track carries a full-circle moment as well: Irish Millie\u2019s father, Murray Shadgett, who drove her to those early lessons, plays guitar on the song, joining his daughter in a tribute to the woman who started it all.<\/p>\n
\u201cAllison\u201d arrives as Irish Millie steps onto the international stage. In 2026 she was named Breakthrough Artist of the Year through North2North, earning the chance to represent Canada at Sweden\u2019s Lilla By Festivalen in Rinkaby, where she performs on the main stage and in the festival\u2019s beloved Kanada Barn. The recognition carries a poetic resonance for an artist whose music draws on traditions with deep European roots, music she is now carrying back across the ocean. Festival co-founders Malin Osth and Jonas Tancred have praised the Celtic pop rock energy she brings to the Canadian contingent.<\/p>\n
Her momentum continues to build. A seven-time Canadian Folk Music Award nominee, Irish Millie earned two 2026 nominations for \u2018Between Then and Now,\u2019 including Young Performer of the Year, her fifth nomination in that category, and Single of the Year for \u201cYou Were There.\u201d In 2026 she was also named Emerging Artist of the Year at the Goderich Celtic Roots Festival. Her previous album \u2018GRACE\u2019 drew praise from Celtic music icons Natalie MacMaster and Donnell Leahy, who called it \u201cfresh, lively\u2026 cool tunes and great playing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Currently a full-time student in the University of Toronto\u2019s Music Industry and Technology Specialist program, Irish Millie balances her studies with an active touring, writing and recording schedule. She has performed across Canada, the United States and Europe, playing to audiences of more than 10,000 at Peterborough Musicfest, and remains rooted in her community through initiatives such as Fiddling for Fox, which earned her the Peterborough Civic Award for Community Betterment. Following her performances in Sweden, she will tour Canada\u2019s East Coast throughout July 2026, bringing her genre-blending energy to stages across Ontario, Quebec and the Maritimes.<\/p>\n
With \u201cAllison,\u201d Irish Millie invites listeners into the moment a young musician first understood where her gift came from, and into the quiet promise that some of the most important people in our lives shape us long before we know how to thank them.<\/p>\n\n\n