Glen Hansard: A life in song and storiesGlen Hansard, who died in a motorbike crash on Wednesday, travelled an unusual journey to stardom.6 hrs agoEurope

The death of Oscar-winning singer-songwriter Glen Hansard in a motorbike crash in Dublin on Wednesday has been met with widespread shock and grief.

The 56 year old, who shot to prominence when he was cast in 1991 musical comedy film The Commitments, was long-time frontman of rock band The Frames.

From Bono to Bruce Springsteen, tributes have poured in from around the world with friends and fans sharing stories about his life and the impact he made.

His was a life in music, from first picking up a guitar as a teenager right up until the final hours of his life, when he was performing in a traditional music session.

It all started with a guitar and a cassette tape.

In an interview with Irish broadcaster RTÉ in February, Hansard said he learned to play the guitar as a child after one was left in his home by an uncle who had gone to prison.

Ballymun was one of Dublin’s most economically deprived areas in the 1980s, hit hard by unemployment, crime and drug addiction.

“I was on a kind of a trajectory of getting into the drugs – only gently – getting heavy into drinking, very young, beginning to kind of break into things, just getting into that slightly dodgy spot,” Hansard said.

But a Bob Dylan cassette, given to him by his girlfriend’s brother, changed the path of his life.

“I listened to Bob Dylan and everything, like my whole world just went into the opposite – flipped,” he said.

“I stayed in the bedroom, I played Bob Dylan songs every day, I learned my craft, I decided music was all I cared about.

“So that was a real turnaround for me, it was a life changer and I suddenly had my path.”

He said he was also fortunate that his headmaster at school encouraged him down the path of music.

Hansard said he told him: “I can’t guarantee you’ll be famous, but if you start now, then you’ll always be able to live from your guitar.”

He left school at 13, and went on to form The Frames and sign his first record deal in 1990, the same year he became part of the cast of The Commitments.

It’s odd to say about someone who was a musician through and through, but – whether by fate or accident – Hansard ended up appearing in two of the biggest films in Ireland’s history.

Alan Parker’s 1991 film, The Commitments, tells the story of the rise and fall of a soul band made up of young working-class Dubliners.

Hansard played the role of guitarist Outspan Foster, despite not originally auditioning for the part.

“I just showed up with my friend, we had been up all night,” he told the XS Noize podcast earlier this year.

“He went for the audition and I sat outside waiting for him.”

Hansard said they were about to leave when he was asked if he wanted to read for a part.

“They said you’ve got red hair, you play guitar, you fit the bill for this character that we’re casting.

“So I went in and I read a few lines and I’d no problem with the accent because I’m from the north side of Dublin – so I’m a northsider, I play guitar and I’ve got red hair, I kind of fit the bill.

“So they gave me a callback and much to my surprise I got the part.”

The film was an unlikely hit, going on to achieve cult status.

He described the experience as “incredible, it was a beautiful experience”.

“It’s sad for me that people have said to me ‘I’ve heard you didn’t enjoy the experience with The Commitments’ – I loved it, I had an absolute ball.

“I just sort of felt it didn’t define me and that was my little bit of resistance.”

Incredibly, the reluctant actor went on to star in another seminal Irish film.

Hansard won his Oscar for the song Falling Slowly from the 2007 film Once, which he co-wrote with his co-star Markéta Irglova.

Again, it was a role he wasn’t originally assigned to play.

Director John Carney had earmarked Irish actor Cillian Murphy for the role.

“He’s quite a good singer. I thought I’d do the usual thing where you get a good actor who can half sing and train that voice, but then it became clear to everybody on the film that we should do it the other way around,” Carney said in an interview with American film news website CHUD.

“We should get somebody who could really sing and half act and I’ll trust that I would be able to do something magical with that.”

He turned to his friend Hansard, who had co-written the music for the film.

As well as Bob Dylan – who he would meet a number of times – another of Hansard’s musical heroes was Belfast’s Van Morrison.

Hansard said his first meeting with Morrison was a rather awkward one when he was 19 or 20 at the star’s birthday party at a member of the Guinness family’s home.

As Morrison jammed in the kitchen, Hansard said his request for one of his songs was met with a gruff response from Morrison.

Later, at his friend’s urging, Morrison passed his guitar to Hansard to play then promptly walked out of the room.

“I’m thinking ‘the only guy I want to actually sing to is gone’,” Hansard told Kevin Pollak’s Chat Show.

Morrison returned during Hansard’s second song and then asked the Dubliner to play the song he had requested earlier, before joining in singing it.

The two then went upstairs and took turns playing their songs to each other.

“I’m getting to sit and observe a master at work up close,” Hansard said.

“We passed the guitar back and forth and I ran out of songs after an hour and a half and Van kept going and going.”

He said as Morrison was leaving at the end of their jam session he said: “Nice voice, nice songs, blah, blah, blah.”

Speaking to BBC’s Radio Ulster in 2023 Hansard talked about meeting other legendary musical figures.

“Up in the high sweet air of that universe, it’s very small and there’s very few people and they’re all making contact with each other,” he said.

“For example, I was at some of [former Pearl Jam singer] Eddie [Vedder’s] sessions that were happening in Los Angeles and Ringo [Starr] came in and played drums, Stevie Wonder came in and played drums.

“Morrissey dropped in at one point and Iggy Pop dropped in.

“There’s just this kind of place where there’s never a question of how can I get that guy’s phone number – everybody up at that level seems to have each other’s contacts.”

In the same interview, Hansard said his mother was a huge Beatles fan and came very close to meeting her heroes in the early 1960s.

“My mother climbed into the back of the Adelphi Cinema in Dublin – her and two of her mates – to see the Beatles,” he said.

“They managed to get into the Beatles dressing room, they didn’t know they were getting into the dressing room.

“And apparently they got up the corridor and [John] Lennon said: ‘Hey mate, there’s three more over here’ and the girls all got kicked out.

For the past 15 years, Hansard had organised an annual Christmas Eve busking gig to raise money for homelessness charities.

He persuaded many Irish stars, including Sinead O’Connor and members of U2, to join him in busking for cash in central Dublin.

Pat Green, of the Simon Community said the busk became “a tradition on the calendar” in the city.

He told BBC News NI’s Good Morning Ulster programme on Thursday that Hansard had been motivated by a “sense of guilt and shame” during a city centre shopping trip at Christmas 2009.

“He was walking down Grafton Street himself with bags of presents and he passed a group of carol singers singing for the homeless and the Simon Community and they asked him to join in,” Green explained.

“And he was busy, he was distracted and he said: ‘No, I can’t.’

“And he got home and it was then he realised there was no material value to the Christmas presents that he bought – that the greater value was out on the street, bringing joy and happiness to people over Christmas.

“So, he went back out and started to busk with literally the cap on the ground.”

He said Hansard and other stars “have raised collectively – with Glen the leader – well over €2m (£1.7m) for homeless services that we provide here in Dublin’s Simon.”

Billy McGuinness, a guitarist in the Irish rock band Aslan, explained how Hansard was able to call in so many favours from his famous friends.

“Glen had this magical way of getting you to do something without making it feel like a job – he made you feel a part of it.”

McGuinness also told the BBC’s Good Morning Ulster programme that the singer was renowned for his kindness both on and off stage.

He cited the example of a young musician who had supported Hansard at a recent gig in County Cork.

“After the gig, Glen gave him a Takamine guitar and I believe that’s not the first time that he did something like that,” McGuinness said.

“That was the type of generous guy that he was.”

Hansard was a long-time friend of Shane MacGowan, the late lead singer of the The Pogues.

Following MacGowan’s death in 2023, MacGowan’s widow Victoria Mary Clarke entrusted Hansard with the role of “musical director” of her husband’s funeral.

Speaking to the Irish radio station Today FM on Wednesday, Clarke recalled how their friend stepped in to help.

“I said: ‘Glen, would you be able to do something at the funeral?” she recalled.

“And he said: ‘Look, if you don’t mind, I’ll do everything. I’ll organise, I’ll get all the music together, you don’t have to worry.'”

MacGowan’s send-off featured performances from Australian singer Nick Cave as well as a ‘who’s who’ from the Irish music scene, including singer-songwriters Imelda May, Declan O’Rourke and Mundy, Hothouse Flowers frontman Liam Ó Maonlaí and Hansard’s own band The Frames.

There were also readings from actor Johnny Depp, U2 singer Bono, Boomtown Rats singer Bob Geldoff and Irish actor Aidan Gillen.

“As people who watched it will testify, he did an incredible job, absolutely incredible, and in a short space – 24 hours – he pulled that together,” Clarke said.