Glen Hansard, the Irish singer-songwriter and actor who won an Academy Award for the film “Once” and led the rock band The Frames, has died. He was 56.
Hansard was killed in a single-vehicle motorcycle crash on the western outskirts of Dublin in the early hours of Wednesday, July 29. Irish police said the collision happened at Lucan, in the Strawberry Beds area, before 4:30 a.m., and that the motorcyclist, a man in his 50s, was treated at the scene but pronounced dead a short time later.
His management company, ATC Management, confirmed the news, writing:
“With broken hearts we announce the passing of Glen Hansard in the early hours of this morning.”
“We are still dealing with the shock of it all, so we kindly ask that the privacy of Glen’s family, colleagues and friends is respected at this difficult time.”
Born in Dublin in 1970 and raised in Ballymun on the city’s north side, Hansard left school young and took to busking on Dublin’s streets, an experience he often called his real musical schooling. He founded The Frames in 1990 and fronted the band for decades, building a devoted following at home and abroad.
His path also ran through film. Hansard made his screen debut in 1991 as Outspan Foster in “The Commitments“, Alan Parker‘s adaptation of the Roddy Doyle novel about a Dublin soul band. Far wider recognition came with the 2007 independent musical “Once“, a modestly budgeted film drawn from his own life as a street performer. He and his co-star Markéta Irglová wrote “Falling Slowly” for the movie and won the Academy Award for Best Original Song, which they collected in 2008. The two went on to record and tour as the folk-rock duo The Swell Season.
Hansard was a close friend and frequent collaborator of Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder. The pair toured together over the years and often shared a stage, and they co-wrote and recorded much of the music for the 2021 film “Flag Day“. Vedder‘s daughter, Olivia Vedder, sang on several of those tracks, including “My Father’s Daughter.”
Hansard was working right up to the end. His most recent release, Don+t Settle – Transmissions West, arrived on June 26, 2026, the second volume of a two-part live career retrospective recorded across two nights at Berlin’s Funkhaus in April 2025.
Away from records and film, Hansard was known for his charity work and his connection to those living on the streets. For years he led the Christmas Eve busk outside Dublin’s Gaiety Theatre in aid of the Dublin Simon Community, and he was a committed advocate in the fight against homelessness. The organization said it was “devastated” by his death.
Tributes poured in from across music and Irish public life. Bono remembered his friend in a lengthy post shared via U2‘s social media:
“Sometimes I would wonder if Glen Hansard really existed….
Seriously, he was such an angelic presence… not otherworldly…in fact, very present this presence…
A smiling rascal if you needed him to be… this most musical and mischievous archangel of Ballymun… no airs, plenty of graces…Of course, Glen was the shining star of the Christmas Eve busk… sometimes the only one reminding the rest of us that Christmas began with a refugee born in a manger, which is hardly a step from living on the street.
To be utterly yourself by being more interested in others – a clue for any of us trying out different personas. He really was who you thought he was. He could never walk by a person living rough without checking they were OK… and more than that, he worked very hard so that less people had to live on the streets in the first place.
When the crowds got bigger and for safety’s sake Glen had to agree to move the busk to a stage kindly provided outside The Gaiety Theatre, he would say ‘we’ll give it our best but it’s not a busk if we’re not on the street!’ …because that’s who he was – a performer at eye level in any situation. The stage was a separation he wouldn’t recognize. Of all the grand and gigantic venues he and The Frames played, you sensed the street was his most favoured place to perform. And street people, his favourite audience.
Voice of the streets. A choir of angels in one man. The rest of us blessed to stand there beside our very own and very earthed Angel Gabriel… All of us welcome in his choir, whatever shape or form.
….and I’m telling myself this morning that if he never existed, then he can never cease to exist. For me, he will always be everywhere I see a coin spinning into an open guitar case.
May you rest in the peace you gave to so many.
Bono”
Bruce Springsteen also paid his respects, writing on Instagram that he was “heartbroken” at the loss of “a great musician, a good friend and a generous and gracious man.”
Hansard is survived by his wife and their young son.
Metal Stop extends its deepest condolences to the family and friends of Glen Hansard.
