I came to fully appreciate Glen Hansard later than some.

Like many, I was properly introduced to him through the 2007 musical romance Once. I had been aware of his band The Frames, but it was Hansard’s portrayal of a Dublin-based busker that captivated me and made me dive deeply into his musical catalogue.

Once is a film I return to at least once a year. It’s one of my most beloved on-screen love stories, and my favourite on-screen musical. The songs, and Hansard’s portrayal of them, never fail to break my heart or restore my faith in the power of music – sometimes both at once.

I was, like so many of Hansard’s fans, heartbroken to read the awful news of his tragic passing yesterday in a motorcycle crash on the outskirts of Dublin. Hansard was 56 years old.

The Irish singer-songwriter, whose raw and searching voice carried him from busking on Dublin’s Grafton Street to an Academy Award for Best Original Song, has for almost 20 years been an artist whose music I return to over and over again for its passion, intensity and emotional depth.

A brilliant ‘half actor’

Hansard first found an audience as frontman of the rock........

© The Conversation