Picture: Wikimedia Commons
Tributes from across the music world have been paid to Oscar-winning singer-songwriter Glen Hansard following his death in a motorcycle accident in Dublin.
The acclaimed former Dublin street busker and occasional actor first attracted attention when he was cast as bass guitarist Outspan Foster in Alan Parker’s glorious 1991 film The Commitments after being spotted while attending the audition to support a friend.
Frontman with the rock band The Frames and half of rock duo Swell Season, Hansard went on to co-star in the cult favourite 2007 film Once. Written and directed by former Frames bass guitarist John Carney, the story of two struggling musicians features the Oscar-winning song ‘Falling Slowly’ composed by the film’s stars Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová. Hansard was cast in the starring role after original choice for the lead role, Cillian Murphy, reportedly walked away from the film.
The stage musical version of Once, featuring a book by Enda Walsh, premiered on Broadway in 2012 with a production which received 11 Tony award nominations, winning eight including Best Musical.
Bruce Springsteen, Finneas and Billie Eilish, Hozier and Lin-Manuel Miranda were among the famous names paying tribute to the musician with U2 frontman and fellow Dubliner Bono posting on X: ‘Sometimes I would wonder if Glen Hansard really existed… Seriously, he was such an angelic presence… not otherworldly… in fact, very present this presence… A smiling rascal if you needed him to be… this most musical and mischievous archangel of Ballymun… no airs, plenty of graces.’
Describing him as a ‘choir of angels in one man’, Bono posted: ‘All of us welcome in his choir, whatever shape or form… and I’m telling myself this morning that if he never existed, then he can never cease to exist. For me, he will always be everywhere I see a coin spinning into an open guitar case. May you rest in the peace you gave to so many. Bono.’
Glen Hansard is survived by his wife, Finnish poet Maire Saaritsa, and their three-year-old son Christy. Hansard and Saaritsa married in 2022.
Angela Thomas
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