{"id":717298,"date":"2026-07-29T13:16:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T13:16:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/717298\/"},"modified":"2026-07-29T13:16:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T13:16:08","slug":"glen-hansard-oscar-winning-irish-singer-songwriter-dies-aged-56-in-motorcycle-crash-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/717298\/","title":{"rendered":"Glen Hansard, Oscar-winning Irish singer-songwriter, dies aged 56 in motorcycle crash | Music"},"content":{"rendered":"

Glen Hansard, the Irish folk-rock musician and actor who fronted the band the Frames and had Oscar-winning success with the 2007 film Once<\/a>, has died aged 56.<\/p>\n

He died in a motorcycle crash in Lucan on the outskirts of Dublin, early on Wednesday morning. Without naming him, Irish police said he was treated at the scene for his injuries but died a short time later.<\/p>\n

Hansard won the Oscar for best original song for Falling Slowly, the centrepiece of Once, which starred Hansard opposite another real-life musician, Mark\u00e9ta Irglov\u00e1, playing two struggling musicians in Dublin who embark on a tentative romance; Irglov\u00e1 co-wrote the song and shared the Oscar with Hansard. Once was then successfully adapted into a stage musical in 2011<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Hansard was also the frontman of the Frames, who released six studio albums, including 2004 Irish chart-topper Burn the Maps.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

A statement from Hansard\u2019s representatives reads: \u201cGlen\u2019s family is deeply shocked and heartbroken by this tragic loss and respectfully requests privacy at this extremely difficult time. The family is grateful for the support they have received and wishes to thank the emergency services who attended the scene. As this matter remains the subject of an active Garda investigation, no further comment will be made at this time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Among those paying tribute was Ireland\u2019s culture minister, Patrick O\u2019Donovan, who said: \u201cFew artists made as big an impact on modern Irish storytelling \u2026 Hansard consistently poured passion and vulnerability into every note. His impact will last generations in Irish music, even as his life has ended far too soon.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hansard had genuinely lived Once\u2019s story of a busker down on his luck: he had started out performing on the streets of Dublin, having dropped out of school early.<\/p>\n

He formed the Frames in his late teens, named for his hobby of fixing up bicycle frames which populated his back garden. His mother secured a bank loan for their earliest recordings: \u201cShe went to the bank manager and asked could she get the house done up,\u201d Hansard later said.<\/p>\n

Buoyed by being signed to Island Records, he recruited a range of local musicians and they released their debut Another Love Song in 1991. Island dropped them, without foreseeing the band\u2019s growing potential: subsequent albums became more and more popular, and they caught the ear of legendary recording engineer Steve Albini who oversaw their first Irish Top 10 release, 2001\u2019s For the Birds. Its followup Burn the Maps hit No 1 and their final studio album The Cost reached No 2.<\/p>\n

Hansard performing in 2002. Photograph: mct\/ZUMA Press Wire\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

The Cost featured the Hansard-Irglov\u00e1 duet Falling Slowly, which the pair also recorded in their duo the Swell Season, who had formed away from the Frames. Irglov\u00e1 met Hansard when she was in her mid-teens, after her father promoted Frames concerts in her native Czechia, and she was invited to contribute backing vocals.<\/p>\n

The film Once was written and directed by John Carney, who had once played bass in the Frames, and who signed up Irglov\u00e1 as one of the leads, with Cillian Murphy being courted for the male lead. Murphy turned down the role, leading Carney to cast an initially reluctant Hansard, who had only acted once before with a role in 1991\u2019s The Commitments.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t remember having any real connection with the creative process during The Commitments other than showing up on set at the right time and speaking my lines,\u201d Hansard reflected in 2009. \u201cThe emotional investment was much higher in Once. It\u2019s just you and your mates and if anyone\u2019s in bad form it\u2019s not going to work, so it was a case of throwing yourself into it completely.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite its small crew and a low budget, Once went on to gross more than $20m worldwide, and Falling Slowly was Grammy-nominated in addition to its Oscar win.<\/p>\n

The on-screen romance was mirrored in real life, despite the age gap between Hansard and Irglov\u00e1, who were 37 and 19 at the time of filming. \u201cI had been falling in love with her for a long time, but I kept telling myself she\u2019s just a kid,\u201d Hansard said, with Irglov\u00e1 saying: \u201cThe friendship and connection that you\u2019re watching on screen between Glen and I exists, and it did grow into a deeper love afterwards.\u201d<\/p>\n

They split in 2009, the year they released second Swell Season album Strict Joy, though a documentary was made about the pair in 2011 and they reunited as musicians for a third album, 2025\u2019s Forward. They also recorded a song in 2022, Take Heart, with Ukrainian refugees.<\/p>\n

The Frames became less of a focus for Hansard after his Once success \u2013 though new songs were recorded for the 2015 compilation album Longitude \u2013 and beginning with 2012\u2019s Rhythm and Repose, he released five solo albums.<\/p>\n

He did not pursue acting further, but did appear as a voice actor on an episode of The Simpsons, and recorded a song for the soundtrack of The Hunger Games.<\/p>\n

In 2023 he had the honour of performing the Pogues\u2019 Fairytale of New York at the funeral of that band\u2019s frontman, Shane MacGowan.<\/p>\n

Hansard is survived by his wife, Finnish poet Maire Saaritsa, and their three-year-old son Christy. He spoke of fatherhood in a 2023 interview: \u201cFor 52 years I was the most important person in my own life, and then suddenly I got a complete perspective shift, and I\u2019m absolutely loving it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Each year, he returned to busking on Dublin\u2019s Grafton Street to raise money for the city\u2019s homeless.<\/p>\n

Once went on to have a remarkable second life thanks to its stage adaptation, written by Enda Walsh and directed by John Tiffany. It opened on Broadway in 2012 and was nominated for 11 Tony awards that year, winning eight. It then ran in Dublin and London\u2019s West End, and has since been revived numerous times in globe-spanning productions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Glen Hansard, the Irish folk-rock musician and actor who fronted the band the Frames and had Oscar-winning success…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":717299,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-717298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/717298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=717298"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/717298\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/717299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=717298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=717298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=717298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}