Born: April 21st, 1970
Died: July 29th, 2026
Musician, songwriter and actor Glen Hansard, who died on Wednesday aged 56, was cut from a very different type of Irish tweed than many of his musical peers.
Growing up in the Dublin suburb of Ballymun, not a million miles away from the blighted setting of the 1991 film The Commitments, Hansard didn’t need to use method acting to play the character of Outspan Foster, guitarist in the titular soul band in the Alan Parker-directed adaptation of Roddy Doyle’s debut novel.
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“I don’t make a big song and dance about it, but I grew up witnessing hardship among friends, family,” he told The Irish Times earlier this year. “Ballymun gets a bad rap, but it was an incredible community.”
He was born Glen James Hansard, one of six children of James and Catherine Hansard, and his early childhood by all accounts was made difficult by his father’s drinking and occasional bouts of violence. When an uncle of Glen’s went to prison, he left behind a guitar, and Glen picked it up and began learning songs by Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan and Van Morrison. Struggling at school, he decided to quit and pursue a musical career. A teacher suggested he try busking on the streets of Dublin, “starting at the bottom rung of the musical ladder”, and, if it didn’t work out after a year, he could come back to school.
Performing on the street was “a great leveller”, Hansard told The Busking Project. “No one’s there to hear you, you’re essentially begging but you’re doing it entertainingly. People can pass by and throw in a coin or they don’t have to throw in a coin – it’s a completely even playing field.
“The busking education sits at the core of everything I’ve done since.”
Hansard quickly became the uncrowned king of the Dublin buskers, and whenever he would arrive on the street with his guitar slung on his back, other buskers would pack up their gear, knowing they could not compete with this consummate street entertainer with an unerring ability to pull a big crowd. From his pitch on Grafton Street, Hansard got to know everyone in Dublin’s music scene, forming close friendships with other buskers including Mic Christopher, and meeting fellow musicians with whom he formed The Frames.
The band’s original line-up consisted of Hansard, guitarist Dave Odlum, singer Noreen O’Donnell, bassist John Carney (who would later cast Hansard in his 2007 film Once), violinist Colm Mac Con Iomaire and drummer Paul Brennan.
When the call came from director Alan Parker to play the role of Outspan Foster in his film version of Roddy Doyle’s The Commitments, Hansard was only too happy to answer. However, he refused to put aside his band, often leading to friction with the director when the filming schedule would clash with a Frames gig.
Chris Blackwell and Denny Cordell from Island Records had been keeping an eye on this charismatic young musician since before his role in The Commitments, and they signed The Frames to their label. But, despite the presence of Pixies producer Gil Norton on the credits, and an exuberant debut single, The Dancer, the band’s debut album, Another Love Song, failed to gain much traction outside Ireland. They were dropped unceremoniously while the label’s other Irish signing, Limerick band The Cranberries, broke big in the US and the UK.
“The Frames didn’t fit into a particular colour or trend,” Hansard told The Irish Times. “Because we came out of busking, I don’t think we were ever a cool band in the sense of rock ’n’ roll cred.”
Being dropped from a major label was the catalyst for Hansard to plough his own musical furrow, and he approached Dave Allen from local Dublin venue Whelan’s to provide some financial backing for the recording of The Frames’ second album, Fitzcarraldo, in return for the band playing a series of shows at the venue for free. The venue had championed The Frames in their early days, but with the release of Fitzcarraldo and its brilliant lead single, the Pixies-influenced Revelate, the band attracted bigger crowds and longer queues to their Whelan’s gigs.
By this time, Hansard had become Dublin’s unofficial godfather of indie-folk, and Whelan’s became a mecca for many young singer-songwriters hoping to catch some of the Hansard stardust, including Paddy Casey, Mundy and Damien Rice. In 2001, the scene was shaken by the death of Hansard’s close friend Mic Christopher. The singer-songwriter died in a fall while on tour in the Netherlands promoting his acclaimed album Skylarkin’.
Following The Frames’ superb For The Birds album in 2001, Hansard began to stretch his musical muscles, performing solo gigs and forming The Swell Season with Czech-Icelandic pianist and singer Markéta Irglová. When director Carney, the former bass player with The Frames, was making his debut feature film, Once, about two struggling musicians who fall in love, he recruited Hansard and Irglová to play the lead characters, and to write the soundtrack.
The film’s lead single, Falling Slowly, composed by Hansard and Irglová, won the Oscar for Best Original Song at the 80th Academy Awards in Hollywood in February 2008, and the film was later adapted into a successful musical stage show, with playwright Enda Walsh writing the book. The show became a Broadway and West End hit, winning eight Tony awards and an Olivier award.
With an 18-year age gap between them, Hansard and Irglová became romantic as well as musical partners. The relationship ended after a couple of years. Their musical bond, however, remained strong and they continued to perform together, and recently wrapped up a successful tour with The Swell Season.
In 2012, Hansard launched his solo career with the album Rhythm and Repose, an altogether rootsier affair than his albums with The Frames, following up with four more acclaimed solo albums, including his final release in 2023, All That Was East Is West of Me Now.
[ ‘Such an angelic presence’: Bono pays tribute to late friend Glen HansardOpens in new window ]
His experience as a busker gave Hansard a street-level perspective of Dublin’s social problems, particularly homelessness, and in December 2016 he joined a number of activists in illegally occupying Apollo House, a vacant office building in Dublin’s city centre, to highlight the crisis. The plan was to convert the disused offices into homeless accommodation, but the protest was ended following a High Court order.
“Well, there are regrets, of course, about Apollo,” he told The Irish Times. “But I was happy to be involved with it. I was happy I was naive enough to think I could make a difference. That’s when change happens – when people don’t second-guess themselves. They just get involved for better or worse. It was an important experience.”
Hansard also returned to busking, albeit just once a year, hosting the annual Christmas Eve “Big Busk” outside the Gaiety Theatre on South King Street in aid of the Simon Community. He was joined each Christmas Eve by some of Ireland’s top musicians, including Bono, Imelda May, Dermot Kennedy and Gavin James.
He also took part in protests over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and in 2014 was prominent in demonstrations against water charges.
In December 2023, Hansard was one of many celebrities – including Nick Cave, Imelda May, Mundy and Camille O’Sullivan – who performed at the funeral of the late Pogues leader Shane MacGowan at St Mary of the Rosary Church in Nenagh, Co Tipperary. Hansard was joined by Irish singer-songwriter Lisa O’Neill for a duet of Fairytale of New York.
Before his death, Hansard had completed an intimate Irish tour with The Frames, and had performed a solo show at the Trinity Sessions in Trinity College Dublin on July 2nd.
In recent years, Hansard found himself taking on a challenging but rewarding new role as father to Christy, his young son with his wife, the Finnish poet Maire Saaritsa. “For 52 years I was the most important person in my own life, and then suddenly I got a complete perspective shift, and I’m absolutely loving it,” he told The Irish Times. “To be of service to this young mind, to this young life, is just ... I can’t believe I didn’t do it before now.”
