Colin Randall writes: Salut! Folk is sad to bring news of the death of Glen Hansard, the Oscar-winning Irish actor, singer, songwriter and musician, in a motorcycling accident in Dublin. He was just 56 ……. ..
Photo: Niccolò Caranti
Glen Hansard was a multi-talented performer of immense wit and charm.
He was a reluctant actor but enjoyed success, notably in the 2007 art-imitates-life film Once in which he played a luckless Dublin musician. Excellent casting: Hansard had left school at 13 to busk on the city’s streets.
With his Czech co-star Markéta Irglová, he wrote the film’s trademark song Falling Slowly, which collected a shared Oscar for best original song. As in the film, they became lovers, albeit relatively briefly.
Hansard had fronted the Dublin band The Frames, whose six albums included an Irish No 1, Burn the Maps.
Before Once his only acting experience had been in The Commitments in 1991. He said his own commitment was limited to turning up on time and speaking his lines. That said, the film is rightly acclaimed as a minor classic of modern cinema.
But it is less for rock or film than folk and folk-rock that Salut! Folk salutes Hansard. His renditions of that fine Dublin prison song The Auld Triangle will live with me forever.
One, at the Royal Albert Hall during an Irish presidential visit to Britain in 2014, saw him sharing the verses with a host of other artists including Paul Brady, Imelda May and even – for once forsaking his fiddle – the Dubliners’ John Sheahan. Another, easily my favourite, showed him singing to a handful of people at the celebrated Parisian bookshop Shakespeare and Company.
I’ll add both clips and also two more, Falling Slowly and his spirited singing of Fairytale of New York at Shane MacGowan’s funeral in 2023.
Ireland’s culture minister, Patrick O’Donovan, said: “Few artists made as big an impact on modern Irish storytelling. Hansard consistently poured passion and vulnerability into every note. His impact will last generations in Irish music….”
Glen Hansard gave us a lot and his life has been taken far too soon.
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