{"id":576478,"date":"2026-07-31T02:36:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T02:36:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/576478\/"},"modified":"2026-07-31T02:36:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T02:36:14","slug":"it-just-feels-like-losing-a-friend-glen-hansard-fans-take-to-the-street-to-sing-and-remember-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/576478\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018It just feels like losing a friend\u2019: Glen Hansard fans take to the street to sing and remember \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The people who gathered on Dublin<\/a>\u2019s South King Street on Thursday to cry and to sing in memory of Glen Hansard<\/a> hugged each other fiercely. They were trying to get their heads round why they were on this street almost six months before the annual Christmas busking session<\/a> for the homeless traditionally brings them together. <\/p>\n

When they woke on Wednesday morning none could have imagined they would be here in the shadow of the Luke Kelly statue singing the Hansard songs that have been the soundtrack of so many of their lives. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe all have different experiences of Glen and Glen\u2019s music and that\u2019s why there\u2019s so many here,\u201d one of the organisers, Jamie Harrington, told the gathering. \u201cHe touched so many people\u2019s lives in so many different ways and we\u2019re here to celebrate Glen, to listen to his music and to be together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Harrington told The Irish Times he first met Hansard in Ballymun<\/a> 15 years ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe came to our youth centre to film the music video for High Hope and we just had a great day. At the end of it, someone said, \u2018I\u2019m starving\u2019 and he bought everybody chips. That showed me what kind of man he was. He saw hungry kids and just went \u2018you\u2019re part of my tribe now\u2019. I\u2019ve been friends with him ever since.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very emotional,\u201d said Joanne Flood from Castleknock. \u201cI didn\u2019t even know a lot of his stuff. I\u2019ve been reading about him in the papers and didn\u2019t realise he had done so much. It\u2019s a special thing for a busker from Dublin, isn\u2019t it?\u201d<\/p>\n

Yvonne Butler from Rathfarnham first saw The Frames play at the Temple Bar Music Centre in 1999 having been dragged along by her brother. <\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t count how many times I\u2019ve seen him perform. It just feels like losing a friend and it\u2019s important to be able to celebrate him here with all these people,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Glen Hansard was Ireland\u2019s band leader, something Bono or Geldof couldn\u2019t beOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Butler was in Airfield Farm with her young son on Wednesday when she heard Hansard had died in a motorbike crash early that morning. <\/p>\n

\u201cI got a text and just walked around the farm for hours. I met one dad on the way out. He was wearing a Frames T-shirt and pushing a buggy. There were tears streaming down his face. I knew how he felt.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"CrowdCrowd pays tribute to Glen Hansard. Photograph: Enda O’Dowd \"TheThe Dublin busking community turned out to pay tribute to Glen Hansard. Photograph: Enda O’Dowd <\/p>\n

Activist and artist Dean Scurry, who stood shoulder to shoulder with Hansard at the Apollo House homelessness protest in 2016, was standing shoulder to shoulder with those mourning his friend\u2019s passing. <\/p>\n

\u201cGlen took action. He made music. He connected people, he connected everybody from paupers to presidents. He connected people through music and through love. That\u2019s activism. I think it\u2019s great that young people came out today and it wasn\u2019t sprinkled with the superstars. It was young people. Young boys and girls with guitars and broken hearts, they wanted to sing songs for their friend,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

As the crowd dispersed with The Auld Triangle still ringing in their ears, Harrington called them back. <\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t think yiz are getting this for nothing,\u201d he shouted. \u201cWhen ye get home please go online and donate to Dublin Simon \u2013 a fiver or a tenner. Or if you\u2019re loaded give them a thousand,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

It was a sentiment his friend Glen would have been proud of. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The people who gathered on Dublin\u2019s South King Street on Thursday to cry and to sing in memory…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":576479,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[615,109247,42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-576478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-dublin","tag-glen-hansard","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=576478"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576478\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/576479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=576478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=576478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=576478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}