Glen Hansard: The Oscar winner who never stopped busking on Dublin streets
By Gráinne Ní Aodha and Claudia Savage, Press Association
The late Glen Hansard – who has died at the age of 56 – used his voice as much for his poetic folk melodies as he did for social causes.
He played at venues great and small across Ireland. He had just completed a set of summer gigs at Trinity College in Dublin three weeks ago, ahead of a tour of Ireland, Germany and Scandinavia planned for this October.
The Ballymun musician’s career began as a teenager busking in Grafton Street, after he was encouraged by his headteacher to pursue music and left school at 13.
He later returned to the Grafton Street area to lead annual charity busks in aid of the capital’s homeless.
His first big break came with a role in the 1991 comedy-drama The Commitments, based on the book by Roddy Doyle, but he later said he regretted taking part, as it distracted from the music.
He was the frontman of rock band The Frames, who released six studio albums and had a major cultural impact in Ireland, supporting the development of upcoming acts such as Damien Dempsey, Mundy and Paddy Casey.
The band was the support act for Bob Dylan’s tour of Australia and New Zealand in 2007.
He is probably best known for the Oscar-winning song Falling Slowly, co-written with Markéta Irglová, who co-starred with him in the film Once.
In the film, Hansard played the familiar role of a busker on Grafton Street.
In his Oscar acceptance speech, Hansard urged people to “make art”.
Hansard married Finnish woman Maire Saaritsa in 2022, and the couple has a three-year-old son, Christy.
The family split their time between Finland and Ireland, and Hansard spoke about his son on RTÉ’s The Late Late Show this year, saying leaving him was “the hardest bit” about going away on tour.
Hansard went on to form folk rock duo The Swell Season with Once co-star Irglová.
His latest release, Don’t Settle, has 22 songs spanning more than three decades of Hansard’s work, with reimagined versions of his work with The Frames and The Swell Season.
Hansard was a vocal advocate for people experiencing homelessness, supporting organisations including Dublin Simon Community and the Peter McVerry Trust through benefit concerts, fundraising busks and public campaigning on Ireland’s housing crisis.
He was a member of the Home Sweet Home group, which took part in the high-profile occupation of an empty office block at Apollo House in 2016.
Dean Scurry, who helped lead the occupation, said that around 10 years ago, he met Hansard at a jazz gig and told him about the thousands of homeless people in Dublin.
“And he said, ‘What you want to do about it?’. And I said, ‘Well, you might need to walk into hell with me’,” he told RTÉ Radio.
“And he said, ‘I’ll do that, I’ll do that’. And he did it in such a lovely and honest way.”
He said Hansard started ringing philanthropists in Los Angeles and Eddie Vedder, lead vocalist for Pearl Jam.
“That’s what he could do in spades; he could weave a story,” he said.
