Allie Sherlock: ‘I had tickets for Macklemore, then I ended up supporting him’

At 19, Allie Sherlock is already a seasoned professional who has had recording and writing sessions in LA with huge names, counts other famous faces as pals and has appeared on numerous television shows including with Ellen DeGeneres when she was just 12 years old.

At the weekend, she performed at the Kaleidoscope Festival and was overjoyed when the audience were singing her song “How Love Works” with her.

“They were singing it so loud, and they knew all the words,” she says. “It was really beautiful, this is why I love to do it.”

@alliesherlock Had the most amazing time at #kaleidoscopefestival #alliesherlock #music #live #singer #viral #fyp ♬ How Love Works – Allie Sherlock

Allie was just 11 when she persuaded her dad Mark to let her go busking. She’d been singing from no height and learning the guitar from the age of eight. And Mark didn’t want to disappoint his daughter, telling her that if she learned 20 songs, they’d hit the streets, not thinking for a second his child would be able to achieve it.

But she soon came back to him with the songs ready and it was one of these performances – Ed Sheeran’s “Supermarket Flowers” when she was performing on Grafton Street — that made her hit the headlines the first time.

Now she’s signed to Universal Records and is releasing her own material too that fans love as much as her covers. But Allie can still be found busking as it’s the thing that feeds her soul.

“I just love the buzz,” she says of playing her songs to passers-by who are, more often than not, drawn in to listen to the talented singer. “I loved how people reacted and I think I just kind of got addicted to that feeling. And I just wanted more and more, and I’ve just been doing it for so many years now, and it’s just amazing – I love it.”

When things initially got busy, Allie had started a new school, and things became difficult for her.

“I had changed schools previously, so I was only shortly in that school. And they didn’t really like me there. I was the new kid, I was being bullied and so because music was also starting to take off, like I was starting to busk more and I think I was starting to go to LA and stuff.”

So her dad Mark decided to homeschool his girl so that she could bring her books with her wherever she went, to the point where Allie actually completed her schooling early.

“I didn’t get summer holidays or winter holidays,” she says. “So, I mean, as much as I hated it then, I was like, ‘Dad, all my friends are not doing homework right now,’ I appreciated it now because I finished when I was 16.”

This weekend Allie has a support slot with The Script in Limerick before she plays Bulmers Live at Leopardstown on Thursday July 17. She’s one of a number of big-name acts performing at the racecourse this summer, with Darren Kiely to come on July 24.

For Allie, there will be a new single in August too.

“We’ve just been doing singles for now, but in the new year, I don’t know when, but definitely in 2026, there will be an album. That is the plan so far.

“I’ve got a song by Alex Warren coming out called ‘Ordinary,’ a cover, and then I’ve got another original song that’s coming out towards the end of August.”

And having a record deal has changed a good bit for the Cork-born singer. “I’ve always wanted to release my own music and go on tour and do all the things that I’m doing now,” she says. “So it’s amazing. It allows me to do everything that I always wanted to do.”

Writing songs is something Allie loves doing, and she has many of them like “Ex-Friend” and “Damage Control,” her latest single. And it is thanks to Ed Sheeran that she’s been able to hone her writing skills.

“Sometimes if I’m having a bad day and I feel like I need to write, I will sit down and I’ll write a song at my piano or at my guitar,” she says.

“I sit down every day no matter what to write a song, because I spoke to Ed Sheeran a few years ago, and he said that he wrote five songs a day, every day. And that doesn’t mean that those five songs were good. But by writing every day, you’re building up almost like a muscle memory of writing.”

This is advice Sheeran gave her to to avoid writer’s block and so far it’s working well. Most of the songs get put in the bin and she always has her dad Mark to fall back on as he has a good ear for a hit, she says.

As for Ed, he invited her to his show in Cork in 2018 after seeing her performance of “Supermarket Flowers” online.

“He invited me backstage and he was like, just we had a conversation and he was honestly the nicest person ever. He was just giving advice and super sweet,” Allie says.

She has worked with the likes of Ryan Tedder and counts the likes of Tom Grennan and Ella Henderson as pals and co-conspirators, but Allie is always amazed when someone like Shawn Mendes follows her on Instagram or the like.

She bought tickets for a recent Macklemore show as she’s a fan and actually didn’t need them because she ended up supporting the star, which was a huge moment for her.

“I had tickets to go see him first,” she says. “And then I got the email, and I was like, ‘oh, my God. I think I’ve manifested this by buying the tickets or something.'”

Recently, a busking performance of a Coldplay track went viral again which led to more followers online and Allie is always amazed that people like Shawn and Meghan Trainor have even heard of her.

She still loves busking and her dad Mark is always on the sidelines too and is very much involved in her career, something Allie is thankful for.

“I think that I’ve found the balance,” she says of Mark’s influence. “I think my dad really helped with that. Because I got really busy, really fast at a super young age. So, I was in LA going on the Ellen Show and I was working with huge producers that made me really busy, but my dad really helped like with making sure I went out with my friends, I did the fun things, but I also did work, and so now, I have a good balance of both.”

As an only child who lost her mother to cancer at the age of nine, Allie appreciates what her dad has done for her and more to the point, what he didn’t allow her to do when she was too young.

“I’ll always make sure to set out some time for myself, whether that’s like going out with my friends or something,” she says. “It’s definitely been pretty busy for the past couple of months. 

“Obviously I love being on stage, but if I’m busy like every single day, it gets too much for me, so making sure to set aside some time for myself, or to hang out with my friends makes the work, a lot more enjoyable and not too much.”

Dad helps with any unwanted attention too though Allie insists that it’s only a handful of messages that are uncomfortable. And he’s always there, even now when she’s busking as there’s no way Allie Sherlock is ever going to stop doing that.

“I still love it,” she says of bagging a slot on Grafton Street and getting out her guitar. “I have so many friends up there. And I love to perform. So it’s like any chance I can get to perform. I can’t always like perform on a stage every single weekend. But I can perform on Grafton Street every week, and it’s the same feeling for me, wherever I’m performing, I love it.”

And it’s made even sweeter when people sing her songs back to her, or tell her that her track is important to them.

“People come up to me and tell me they’ve had really hard times in their life, and that they listened to my music and it really helped them. And that’s another thing that really makes me feel like this is why I do it. It’s for those people.”

Allie Sherlock plays Bulmers Live at Leopardstown on Thursday July 17. Tickets from just €30 are on sale now from leopardstown.com/bulmerslive.

*This article was originally published on Evoke.ie.