Thousands expected to attend Glen Hansard public wake in Dublin

Thousands were expected to attend Glen Hansard’s public wake at the Baroque Chapel in IMMA, Royal Hospital Kilmainham, as Dublin marked the death of the 56-year-old singer-songwriter with a farewell that reached far beyond his own fan base. The wake was scheduled for Monday from 11am to 4pm, with his funeral set for Tuesday at St Patrick’s Cathedral.

Hansard’s family said they were “deeply shocked and heartbroken” by his death in a motorcycle crash in Dublin in the early hours of Wednesday. The crash was reported near Strawberry Beds in Chapelizod, with another account placing the scene on the outskirts of Lucan.

The scale of the response has reflected how deeply Hansard was woven into Irish cultural life. RTÉ reported that a memorial busk took place in Dublin city centre in tribute to him, while fans queued at the Mansion House in Dublin to pay their respects, sharing shock, love and admiration after his death. The public wake has become a broader expression of loss, drawing people who knew him through film, radio, street performance and decades of live music as much as through any single record.

Hansard first shot to prominence after being cast in the 1991 musical comedy film The Commitments, then became the long-time frontman of The Frames, one of the country’s most admired rock bands. He later won an Academy Award for co-writing Falling Slowly with Markéta Irglová for the 2007 film Once, a song that carried Irish songwriting onto the international stage and gave him a place in the country’s modern musical canon.

Coverage of the funeral said music would be provided by Hansard’s friends and family, underscoring the personal scale of the goodbye now planned at St Patrick’s Cathedral. The public wake at IMMA, with the cathedral service to follow, has turned a celebrity funeral into a national ritual for a performer many Irish people had claimed as one of their own.