29/07/2026
Glen Hansard’s voice was the soundtrack to my late teens and twenties - so many important memories are formed around his music. I first heard the Frames live at a gig in the Black Box in Dublin in the late 1990’s, snuck in with two older friends. It was so loud, so sweaty, so INSANE, I was completely blown away by the rawness of Glens performance, tapping in to a part of me I didn’t even know was there. Around then too, there was word spread (how I don’t know, there were no mobile phones) of a pop up gig in the sand dunes of Brittas Bay and I dropped everything and took my mums 1982 ford fiesta and crammed as many of us as could fit and drove down to Brittas and along the coast following the bass wafting over the dunes until we found a gathering of musicians huddled in a dip looking out at the sea. Glen sang that night and again it opened something in me a little bit more.
I’ve written almost daily for more than 20 years to the opening instrumental song from their 2001 album For the Birds - a song called In the Deep Shade playing on a loop.
An oak of a man, generous, fiercely compassionate and committed to making art that lit up so so many of our lives.
Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam and such condolences to his family and close friends who loved him so dearly and so well.