Hundreds of mourners, including high-profile politicians, actors and musicians, gathered in Dublin for the funeral of Glen Hansard, who died on July 29 in a motorcycle crash at the age of 56.
Access to St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Tuesday was limited given the size of the crowd who came to celebrate the Irishman’s life, but stars Bono, Steve Coogan, Chris O’Dowd, Declan O’Rourke, Imelda May, Hozier, BP Fallon, Mundy, Damien Dempsey and Jake Clemons were among those photographed entering the venue.
Hansard was best known as the frontman for the rock band the Frames, though he had successful solo albums with 2012’s Rhythm and Repose and 2015’s Didn’t He Ramble. He also wrote music for film, appearing in the BAFTA-winning The Commitments (1991) and Irish music drama Once (2007), in which he and co-star Markéta Irglová played a dramatized version of their real-life musical pairing, folk rock duo The Swell Season. It won them the Oscar for best original song the following year, for the track “Falling Slowly.”
Irglová performed at the funeral service alongside Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam. Together, they sang Hansard’s The Song of Good Hope alongside Thomas Bartlett and the Frames.
Before that, Hansard’s wife, Maire, reflected on the loss and became visibly emotional. “I can find no adjective for the kind of support the family has been shown this past week,” she began. “The word is hidden somewhere in the look in people’s eyes and in the depth of their good deeds. None of this could have been done without you. Most of whom I’ve not even met yet. I owe my deepest gratitude to all our good friends who have spared no effort to guide me through this time.”
“As Glen’s wife, I want to thank him for the life we shared, searching for truth and beauty side by side, [which] we found in our son,” she continued, saying that their three-year-old is “too young to witness or understand” an event of such scale. “The bright spirit he inherited from his father is with us,” she added.
An array of performers and speakers took to the lectern inside the cathedral to pay tribute to Hansard, described by Irish poet Breandáin Ó Beaglaoich as “generous and truthful” and “a one-off person.” He said after reading a dedicated piece of work to Hansard: “I’ll be fond of you forever, Glen. You beautiful, beautiful man.”
One of Hansard’s younger brothers, Richard, led a particularly powerful speech, telling attendees that an evening with his sibling would be an “evening filled with songs, with stories, with tea, with chips and egg. Whatever happened, you knew that you were gonna be completely felt, heard, understood and filled with fresh excitement and possibly hope.”
“Glen made me feel that the world was a far more magical place than it seemed at the time to a young, shy boy from North Dublin. He sang songs. He was a storyteller. He would come in and turn the evening around, and it was easy to look up and be inspired. But also, he did the hard work. He wanted us to be better when we realized more than we realized that we could be. For his little brothers, he did those hard stuff. He instilled morals, a moral compass. He took responsibility and would say, ‘You’re not doing that. You’re not missing school. You’re not spray-painting walls. You’re not getting tattoos on your belly of a Finnish goth metal band you only listened to for two months,’” he said, prompting laughter from the room.
Hansard continued: “Glen said once that when you lose someone, you don’t really lose them. If you have the strength and the will, you will gain them back, and you inherit the best parts of them. We have inherited all the magical, colorful words, hugs, talks, madness, sadness, insightful, manic beauty that a brother, an uncle, a husband and a father could ever give. Thank you, Glen. Thank you, brother. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.”
The star’s other brother, Gary, also stood up to thank attendees and well-wishers before performing a short song. Colm Mac Con Iomaire and Liam Ó Maonlaí sang, as did Ó Beaglaoich. “He was so well known on the big stages of Ireland and all over the world, [an] ordinary kind-hearted Ballymun man,” said Ó Beaglaoich. “A true Dub.”
At the end of the service, U2 singer Bono stood up to recite a poem, but not before revealing that Patti Smith had left him a voicemail after hearing the news of her friend’s passing. He played the voicemail, explaining that Smith was happy to share the recording despite not being able to attend. Together, Bono and U2 lead guitarist The Edge performed “Beautiful Day” with Colm Mac Iomaire, Joseph Doyle and Michael Buckley.
The Hollywood Reporter reflected on Hansard’s legacy — and why he was a hero straight out of the movies — on Monday.
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