Glen Hansard, the Dublin-born singer-songwriter whose ballad “Falling Slowly” won him an Academy Award, died early Wednesday morning (29 July, 2026) in a motorcycle crash on the outskirts of Dublin. He was 56.
Irish police said a man in his fifties was killed in a single-vehicle crash on Lower Road at the Strawberry Beds in Lucan, on the western edge of the capital, shortly before 4:30 a.m. He was treated at the scene but pronounced dead a short time later. His management team, ATC Management, confirmed the news hours after, describing a family “deeply shocked and heartbroken” by the loss and asking for privacy while the Garda investigation continues.
For an artist who spent three decades turning busking on Grafton Street into a genuine international career, the loss has hit Dublin especially hard. Hansard had reportedly spent Tuesday night at the Wren’s Nest pub on Lower Road, where he regularly joined a group of local musicians for a traditional session, before setting off on the road where the crash happened.
Brief Biography
Glen James Hansard was born on 21 April 1970 and grew up in Ballymun, a working-class district on Dublin’s north side that he never tried to dress up in interviews. “I grew up witnessing hardship among friends, family,” he told The Irish Times earlier this year. He dropped out of school as a teenager to busk full-time, guitar case open on the footpath, and formed The Frames while still in his teens.
The band became a fixture of the Irish rock scene through the 1990s, releasing six studio albums and building a reputation as one of the most intense live acts in the country, even as mainstream success stayed just out of reach. Hansard also picked up an unexpected side gig as an actor, playing guitarist Outspan Foster in Alan Parker’s 1991 film “The Commitments,” based on Roddy Doyle’s novel about a soul band from North Dublin. It’s still one of the roles he’s best remembered for on screen.
Once, Falling Slowly, and the Oscar
Everything changed in 2007. Hansard starred alongside Markéta Irglová in “Once,” a low-budget Irish film about a busker and a Czech immigrant who write music together. He and Irglová wrote the songs themselves, including “Falling Slowly,” which won the Academy Award for Best Original Song in 2008. Their acceptance speech, cut short by the orchestra before Irglová had spoken, became one of the more talked-about Oscar moments of that decade, and the ceremony’s host brought her back out later to finish it.
Hansard and Irglová performed together as The Swell Season, releasing several albums that carried the same raw, unpolished intimacy as “Once” itself. They were partners for a time as well as collaborators, though that relationship ended around 2009. The pair kept working together on and off for years afterwards, reuniting most recently for 2025’s “Forward,” their first Swell Season record in over a decade.
Hansard released his debut solo album, “Rhythm and Repose,” in 2012, after touring alongside Eddie Vedder. His follow-up, 2015’s “Didn’t He Ramble,” earned a Grammy nomination for Best Folk Album. Three more solo records followed: “Between Two Shores” (2018), “This Wild Willing” (2019), and “All That Was East Is West of Me Now” (2023), the latter picking up a strong 79 on Metacritic and generally positive reviews from critics who noted he was still restless, still experimenting, more than three decades into his career.
Away from his own catalogue, Hansard was the first presenter of RTÉ’s “Other Voices,” now one of Ireland’s best-loved live music showcases, and he appeared regularly at Dublin’s Christmas Eve busk on Grafton Street, a tradition he treated as seriously as any arena show. He had been married to Maire Saaritsa since 2022 and had one child.
Tributes From Ballymun to the World
News of Hansard’s death set off an outpouring of tributes from musicians who knew him personally and fans who felt like they did. U2’s Bono, a longtime friend and fellow busker at the Grafton Street Christmas Eve gig, wrote a lengthy Instagram tribute calling him “a smiling rascal” and “this most musical and mischievous archangel of Ballymun,” and recalled how Hansard would never walk past someone sleeping rough without stopping to check on them.
Bruce Springsteen posted that “here on E Street, we are heartbroken,” remembering Hansard as “a great musician, a good friend and a generous and gracious man.” Bob Geldof called him “wonderful” and “burstingly talented.” Ed Sheeran, Josh Groban and Lin-Manuel Miranda each posted their own tributes, and fellow Irish songwriter Hozier said Hansard’s legacy “reaches far beyond that of an Irish or Dublin musician,” describing him as central to Irish storytelling on stage, screen and street for as long as most people can remember.
Ireland’s President, Catherine Connolly, called Hansard one of the country’s “great singer-songwriters,” while former president Michael D. Higgins praised both his artistry and his advocacy work with the homeless in Dublin, a cause Hansard supported quietly for years rather than treating it as a photo opportunity.
No funeral details had been made public at the time of writing, and Hansard’s family has asked for privacy while the Garda investigation into the crash continues. What’s clear already is the scale of what’s being mourned: a musician who started out with a guitar case on a Dublin street and ended up on stage at the Oscars, without ever really changing who he was to get there.
