Once

Dublin, 1983, a skinny little ginger haired boy is standing in front of an open guitar case singing his heart out. This wasn’t the Ireland you know today. It was somehow rougher and gentler at the same time, small and intimate but with some really rough characters.

My memory is of a very gray place, chain link fences and snarling dogs. Then you would happen on an old dote selling apples. Full of contradiction.

At least this little thirteen-year-old was on Grafton Street, upmarket, close to the Shelbourne and Stephen’s Green. That little ginger was Glen Hansard.

You don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone. I think Ireland just had one of those moments with the death of Glen Hansard on July 29^th. For anyone who has missed a lot of popular culture, Glen was a singer, songwriter and occasional movie star. His goal in life was “to write 10 really good songs.”

Everyman

Glen was a low-key guy; no entourage or artifice of celebrity for him. He spent his last hours singing in a little pub. A place where he regularly did this to the same handful of people.

He was an Everyman. And yet he wasn’t.

Glen was the guy who persuaded any and every Irish singer and performer to “busk” in his annual Christmas Busk in Dublin. If you haven’t seen one, they are absolutely brilliant.

Bono, Hozier, Liam O, Imelda May, you name it, all getting together, on Christmas Eve no less, to sing on Grafton Street. The concert is to benefit the homeless in Dublin.

The kind of leadership that could command this participation for fifteen years would intuitively seem like it had to come from an over-the-top charismatic character. You would be wrong.

That was not Glen’s style at all. His was a kind and humble in a way that somehow worked.

What did seem to resonate through everything he did was that he had a way with people, the common touch. I have to think that came at least in part from a life lived on the street.

Even his songwriting, was more direct and honest than anything else. Famous but unassuming to the last.

Busking

To begin a professional singing career at the age of thirteen is not common, but to be let out to busk in Dublin is unimaginable. His national schoolteacher laughed in an interview several years ago that he was the man who gave Glen permission to quit school. It would border on child abuse here.

But he was correct. Glen prevailed. In the same interview, Glen discussed learning things like how to project his voice over street noise and get the attention that he needed to make a few pounds drop into his guitar case.

Once The Commitment Hollywood Calling                                                                                                          

Glen’s career was full of plot twists. Around the time of “The Commitments,” he was also part of a trad/rock band called The Frames. His biggest musical success was a collaboration between himself and Czech singer Markéta Irglová that came from a crush that became a movie.

They had formed a band called Swell Season. There was from all accounts a genuine love story there that, like the movie, didn’t work out.

It is a personal, quiet movie. Made for a ridiculous $150,000, it grossed $23 million. It garnered multiple nominations, both for the music and the film itself. Glen and Markéta went home with an Oscar for best original song at that years’ Oscars.

From busking, Glen landed his first movie role. He was twenty-one when he played a Dublin soul musician in the seminal 1991 Irish movie, “The Commitments.”

The film was based on a Roddy Doyle story. They were wise enough to cast musicians in the parts. It was an absolute sensation at the time, spawning a best-selling soundtrack full of great soul covers.

Grafton Street                                                                                                                

Success took Glen Hansard around the world. But time and again, he went back to Grafton Street and the people that he met when he began singing there. Some of them were still there.

Not everyone had his bottled-lightning luck. Many were struggling, in or on the edge of poverty. The Busk was born there in 2010.

It all points to some of the things that made Glen unique in the world of celebrity fame- chasing TikTokers. His kindness and humility were steadfast throughout. He embodied the Irish seanfhocal, “Ar scáth a chéile a mhaireann na daoine”, (ār sca a kāla a warēn na dēna – It is in the shelter of each other that people live). His ability to reach back to the roots that never left him and think about others embodied the very Irish ideal of living in each other’s shadow.

The street that taught Glen everything never left him. He went back there for his biggest success, “Once.” The infamous Christmas Busk, on a lit up, glittery Grafton Street, shoulder-to-shoulder with other musicians, he couldn’t have looked happier.

In fairness, there is something about Grafton Street. The lights, the shops, Bewley’s and the pedestrian walkways never really change. The street performers and park at the end have always made this a welcome corner of Dublin.

We were there at Christmas last year and were on a train on Christmas Eve. We had the mad notion that we would go to the Busk. We quickly realized that this notion was likely to get us killed when we got back to Castlerea, big family dinner, obligations and all.

We thought, another time … Always a dangerous thought … or …