Irish singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Maria Butterly joins forces with celebrated Quebec guitarist and producer Martin Larose for “The Last Ship to Shore,” a luminous, cinematic new single co-written with arranger Frank Corneau that bridges two of the world’s great folk traditions across one extraordinary piece of music. It is a song about longing to belong, about setting out across deep open waters in search of a place to finally call home, and it arrives as one of the most emotionally resonant collaborations of either artist’s already remarkable career.
The song’s origins are as organic as its sound. Butterly and Larose met in Dublin during a visit to the legendary Windmill Lane Recording Studios, where U2, The Cranberries, The Rolling Stones, and The Chieftains recorded some of their earliest work. The connection was immediate, rooted in a shared recognition that Irish and Canadian folk music draw from the same deep well of migration, exile, and longing for home. “I knew I could add something to it that would bring the two cultures together harmoniously in music,” Butterly has said of the collaboration. The lyric delivers on that promise with sweeping, imagistic beauty:
“Emerald streams / Emerald dreams / As the lighthouse guides the last ship to shore.”
Butterly, a Meath native who has performed at Nashville’s Bluebird Café, the House of Blues in Los Angeles, and New York’s Mercury Lounge, is a winner of Best Celtic Sound at the New York International Film and Music Festival and multiple Songwriter of the Year awards at the Leinster Entertainment Awards. She holds a Master’s degree in Scoring for Film, TV, and Interactive Media, and her music has appeared on RTE, TG4, Virgin Media One, and Sky. Larose, from the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region of Quebec, is a Guitar World-featured virtuoso, founder of Studio Septentrio, producer and host of the television series Studio Boréal, and the artist behind eight solo albums. Together with Corneau, a master arranger whose work spans orchestral strings, brass, and layered harmony, the three have created something genuinely timeless.
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