Glen Hansard always found a way to bring the music out of people

July 30, 2026 — 11:58am

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Glen Hansard was a shining light of Irish music. He was a maverick and a true artist – a gregarious, warm, thoughtful and caring lover of people and songs, to be found at the centre of so many good things, strumming his guitar, singing and playing because that’s where he found his best self. And so many other people found their best selves with him.

I was shocked to hear of his death, in a motorbike crash, aged just 56. I had been listening to one of his songs just a couple of days ago, a live version of When Your Mind’s Made Up that builds to a torrent of wild music and ends with the audience picking up the tune and singing it back to him with the delicacy and finesse of a choir. Hansard always found a way to bring the music out of people.

I knew him just a little from knocking around the music scene in Dublin. It would be hard to miss him: he was the busker made good, who dropped out of school aged 13 to play his guitar on Grafton Street, and wound up as an accidental film star and Oscar-winning singer-songwriter held in the highest regard by some of his own greatest musical heroes. Down a very crooked path of a lifetime making music, Hansard toured the world solo and with his atmospheric rock band The Frames, and shared stages, dressing rooms and deep conversations with........

© The Sydney Morning Herald