Dies in motorcycle accident Glen Hansard, the singer-songwriter who triumphed with the film 'Once'

BarcelonaThe Irish singer Glen Hansard, who in 2007 won the Oscar for the song "Falling slowly, which he had written for the soundtrack of the film Once, has died at the age of 56 in a motorcycle accident in Lucan, west of Dublin, the BBC reports. Hansard was one of the members of the fictional band from the film The Commitments (1991) and led his own rock band, The Frames, before achieving success with Once, who were starring in the same Hansard and Markéta Irglová, also authors of the soundtrack as members of The Swell Season, a folk band that recorded three albums.

Born in Dublin in 1970, Hansard left school at 13 to start playing guitar on the streets of Dublin. This was, more or less, his character in Alan Parker's acclaimed film The Commitments (1991), about a fictional Irish soul band on Hansard playing the guitarist. After the film's great success, Hansard focused his energies on his musical career with the rock group he led, The Frames, one of the reference bands of Irish rock in the 90s. The Frames recorded six albums and toured with Bob Dylan.

In 2006, The Frames bassist John Carney used some of the stories Hansard had told him about his years as a busker to write the script for "

One, a low-budget romantic drama that was initially set to star Cillian Murphy. In the end, Hansard himself ended up starring with the young Markéta Irglová, also a musician and with no acting experience, in this beautiful story of love, loneliness, and creativity. Premiered at the Sundance Festival, Once was one of the surprises indie of 2007. When Hansard and Irglová collected the Oscar for Best Original Song (Falling slowly), the singer highlighted the independent spirit of the film, "shot with two handycam for 100,000 dollars in three weeks", without expecting anything, and called to "make art".

As a result of rolling Once, Hansard and Irglová became an artistic and romantic couple and launched the project The Swell Season, which released its first album in 2006, before the premiere of Once, and which already included "Falling slowly. When they released the next album, Strict joy (2009), the romantic relationship between Hansard and Irglová had already ended, but they remained good friends and made music together. In fact, their third and final album arrived last year: Forward (2025). In Barcelona they performed in 2008 at Primavera Sound and, two years later, at Sala Apolo.

Hansard also had a solo career. He debuted in 2012 with Rhythm and Repose and recorded a total of six albums. In 2024, he presented his latest album in Barcelona, All that was east is west of me now, 2023. As explained in Berta Cusó's chronicle of that concert, Hansard recalled the figure of an old friend, the DJ and Barcelona musician Aleix Vergés, known as Sideral, whom he frequented when he was young. "He was my first friend in Barcelona and I miss him a lot – Hansard explained–. We walked a lot, always with a bottle in hand, while we chatted at length". Hansard closed that concert with a beer in hand, toasting the living and also the dead and singing the nostalgic Irish ballad "Carrickfergus. Only a few months earlier, he had sung an extraordinary and moving version of Fairytale of New York to the funeral of Shane McGowan, the singer of The Pogues. Surely many songs will be sung these days in memory of Glen Hansard.