Glen Hansard, one of Ireland’s most beloved musicians, has died, prompting an outpouring of grief from fans, politicians, and fellow artists across the country and beyond.
Hansard was best known internationally for his Academy Award-winning song Falling Slowly, written with Marketa Irglova for the 2007 Irish film Once. The pair took home the Oscar for Best Original Song in 2008, in a moment that felt genuinely magical for Irish music lovers everywhere. But for anyone who grew up in Dublin, Glen Hansard was always much more than an Oscar winner. He was the guy you might have spotted busking on Grafton Street before he ever set foot on a stage in Hollywood.
Tributes have been flooding in from across Irish public life. Taoiseach Micheál Martin described Hansard as a troubadour whose gift for storytelling brought so much joy to so many people. Dáil deputy Catherine Connolly also paid her respects, reflecting on the unique place Hansard held in Irish cultural life. American actress Rachel Zegler was among the international voices joining the chorus of grief, showing just how far his music had travelled.
Hansard started out as the frontman of The Frames, a Dublin band that built up a fiercely loyal following through years of hard gigging on the Irish circuit. The band were never quite a mainstream chart act, but they had something better than that, a devoted fanbase who would follow them anywhere. Songs like Revelate and Fitzcarraldo became anthems for a generation of Irish music fans who felt like The Frames were speaking directly to them.
It was Once that brought him to global attention. The low-budget film, directed by John Carney, followed a Dublin street musician and a Czech immigrant who connect through music. Hansard played the lead role, drawing heavily on his own experiences as a busker and working musician. The film was raw, honest, and deeply Irish in its sensibility, and it struck a chord with audiences worldwide in a way that nobody really predicted.
Winning the Oscar was a surreal moment. Hansard and Irglova initially had their acceptance speech cut short, but host Jon Stewart brought them back out to finish what they had to say. It was a small moment of decency that fans never forgot, and Hansard handled it with the same warmth and humility that defined everything he did publicly.
Beyond the awards and the accolades, what people seem to remember most about Hansard is his generosity as a performer. He was known for giving everything on stage, for playing long sets, for stopping to talk to fans, for busking on the streets of Dublin even when he had no financial reason to do so. Music, for Hansard, always seemed less like a career and more like a calling.
He was also a regular presence at social and political causes in Ireland, never shy about using his platform to speak up on issues he cared about. Whether it was housing, homelessness, or just showing up to support smaller artists, he was someone who put his name where his values were.
The reaction to his death says a lot about what he meant to people. This is not the polite, formal grief that greets the passing of a public figure. The tributes pouring in feel personal, like people losing someone they actually knew, even if they only ever knew him through his songs.
For a generation of Irish music fans, Glen Hansard was the sound of Dublin on a rainy evening, of staying up too late talking about nothing and everything, of falling in love and falling apart. He had a way of writing about ordinary human experience that made it feel universal without ever losing its specific Irish texture.
He is gone now, but Falling Slowly will keep falling, and The Frames back catalogue will keep finding new listeners who wonder how they ever lived without it. That is probably the best thing you can say about any artist.