Glen Hansard
If you’re reading this, I’ll assume you know what a brilliant and uniquely Irish life Glen Hansard lived. No need for the resume and list of accomplishments, right? Please read on.
The Wren’s Nest, where there’s a trad Irish music session on Tuesday and Thursday nights, is believed to be the oldest pub in Dublin.
Didn’t he ramble
Glen Hansard played at a traditional Irish music session last Tuesday night at a pub called The Wren’s Nest (founded 1588), which is about seven miles from downtown Dublin in a village called Lucan on the River Liffey. This session was special. Not because Hansard participated - he was practically a regular - but because everyone was still celebrating Mayo’s recent All-Ireland championship.
Hansard left at 11:30 P.M. according to the owner.
A MAN aged in his 50s has died after a horrific motorbike crash in Dublin.
The single-vehicle collision took place near Strawberry Beds in Lucan shortly before 4:30am this morning.
A man travelling through Lucan towards the Strawberry Beds on his way to work discovered the scene, stopped to assist and contacted the emergency services.
“The belief is at this stage that the bike hit a soft verge on the road and that made him lose control of the vehicle. It then flipped over.”
The motorcyclist, a man in his 50s, was treated at the scene but was sadly pronounced dead a short time later.
Bono and Glen Hansard busking on Grafton Street in Dublin, an annual Christmastime tradition Hansard started
Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam
Anyone in Dublin who wants to can attend the traditional Irish wake for Glen Hansard Monday as well as his funeral Tuesday morning at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral. Here’s the formal obituary from RIP.IE. No nation does funerals for its legends like Ireland. There’s a condlences book at the residence of Dublin’s Lord Mayor that anyone can sign. The wake and funeral are open to all. Failte. RTE, Ireland’s national broadcaster, will carry the proceedings from the funeral Tuesday live. Hansard was the front man at the funeral of Shane McGowan of the Pogues. Here’s his memorable version of Fairy Tale of New York.
Outspan Foster was the name of the guitar player portrayed by Glen Hansard in this 1991 film.
Hollywood could wait
Here’s a story about Glen Hansard. He had been chosen for a role in The Commitments, the saga of the rise and fall of a Soul band from north Dublin, because he was a real musician. He made his way “busking” on the streets and was talented enough to form a band – The Frames. Hollywood came calling as the director, Alan Parker, began filming on a small budget and tight schedule in August 1990. One night though, filming had to be halted because The Frames had a gig to play and Hansard had to be with his band. Stop a Hollywood production for one actor who’s in a band? Hansard loved being in The Commitments and enjoying its considerable success but he was a working musician first and as The Frames front man he couldn’t let the band down for the sake of his movie career.
Glen Hansard wasn’t the first choice to play Guy in Once.
Once upon a time
When Glen met Marketa Irglova, he was 31. She was 13. Her parents introduced them when he performed at a music festival in the Czech Republic they were producing. Seven years later, in 2006, they were in a movie together called Once. Originally, Cillian Murphy was cast to play the role of Guy (Marketa was Girl). She had never acted before. She had zero acting experience,…and, partly for that reason Mr. Murphy soon bowed out. (“It’s a real risk for an actor to be in a movie with a non-actor,” Irglova acknowledged.) NY Times. Murphy stepped aside before shooting began and Hansard stepped in. The rest is Oscar history. Falling Slowly, which he co-wrote with Irglova, won the Best Song Academy Award for 2007. As for the real life love story. They were a pair for about two years and continued to perform together even after they broke up. When he died at 56, Hansard was married to Finnish poet Marie Sariitsa. They had a son in 2022 and named him Christy after the legendary Irish folksinger Christy Moore. (Educated guess.)
Glen Hansard playing with The Frames five months ago at DeDarra’s in Clonakilty, West Cork.
“We have lost our champion and our hero in Glen”
Hansard was loved in Ireland by multitudes. Especially musicians and club owners. “It was Hansard's commitment to Irish music at every level, particularly at grassroots, that set him apart and earned him the admiration of people across the country and world.,” wrote John O’Shea in the Irish Examiner (nee Cork Examiner). ‘Glen was the driving force. He seemed like the kind of guy who pulled people around him. You certainly felt encouraged by him as opposed to feeling discouraged,” said Niall O’Driscoll frontman for the West Cork-based band Low Mountain. Hansard was set to tour Ireland in October . Where he was to play says it all about his All-Ireland appeal: Cork, Limerick, Killarney, Sligo, Galway and Belfast. ““We have lost our champion and our hero in Glen. A true champion of art, of people, of Irish culture, of social justice and of song," said Ray Blackwell, owner of De Barra’s in Clonakilty, West Cork.
2 November 2012. Look who I ran into in Arizona. Hansard had performed in Las Vegas the night before at the Palms Casino Resort. He’d always wanted to see the Grand Canyon so he rented a red Mustang convertible and drove with a friend to the South Rim. A group from the Earthrise legal clinic had run from the top to the bottom and back up, where we met him. What a nice, friendly, unassuming guy he was. And this was after he’d won that Oscar.
Best Obituary
The best Obituary. There are loads of them on the internet. If you want to read just one, check out this from RTE. His band played a kind of turbo-charged emo-folk that detractors christened raggle-taggle. Glen sang with a pained solemnity that was singularly at odds with nineties post-modern ennui… you could always tell by talking to him and listening to his music that he wanted to be in the pantheon, surely he would have gasped in wonder and disbelief when he began winning praise from the very people he had idolised - Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and Joni Mitchell. He had also regularly shared stages with Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam, Bono, and Sinéad O’Connor. He has left behind a serious artistic legacy that will remain a monument to self-belief and the healing power of music.