“Imagine, it’s your last day on earth, it’s a Paddy’s Day, and you might have had a drink, just the one”!
“Then, Brendan Behan’s song strikes up and you’re reminded you’re in the most special place on earth”.
That was my introduction to Glen Hansard. On a YouTube video of a concert at the Royal Albert Hall on St Patrick’s Day of 2014. Titled “Glen Hansard And Friends perform The Auld Triangle”.
The ‘Friends’ including but not limited to: Paul Brady, Imelda May, John Sheahan, Elvis Costello, Lisa Hannigan, Donal Lunny, Andy Irvine and Conor O’Brien.
The most movingly fitting element of the entire performance was undoubtedly the presence of John Sheahan on stage. Not only because the great man sang a verse of Behan’s classic that only he could do:
“Well I wish to Jazus, they’d raise my wages, from 13 Shillings to two pounds ten. Then that auld triangle, could go jingle jangle… “
https://youtu.be/MXdGRjn1oWo?is=yHV1VEDGyqTYDHL_
Also, however, because Glen was (how devastating is it to be writing that in the past tense) the nearest to a reincarnation of Luke Kelly I – or maybe anybody – has ever seen. Damien Dempsey, to be fair to him, is highly comparable also but in a different way.
Hansard, though, was so close to a double of the man whose gravestone simply reads ‘Dubliner’ it was as if someone had gone to the Mount Rushmore of musicians and chissled him from a template of the greatest. In looks, in voice and the indescribable manner in which he could spellbind an audience. Even a television one.
Believe it or not, surprise surprise, I first came across him in the middle bar of Brady’s of Dunboyne. He wasn’t performing or anything and, not being much of a movie swat, I hadn’t a clue who he was. Until it emerged that he was actually related to somebody I did know there. And, as is often the case in these situations, once there was an ‘in’ to his work, his career was followed with more of an attuned interest.
Now, I’d heard of The Commitments and knew it was a cult classic of its time but, in all honesty, my knowledge thereof went no further than the soundtrack. There was certainly no inclination that Glen had actually starred in the 1991 blockbuster himself.
In a similar sort of way, I knew of the song Falling Slowly, but had no idea it was him who performed it. Though don’t the opening lyrics thereof speak to every one of us at some level or other? Which of us hasn’t had a love interest that we wished had turned out differently at one point in time? “I don’t know you, but I want to”.
For me, though, and there is still a very raw sense to referring to the Ballymun man in the past tense, such was the impact of the devastatingly departed bearded one, the inscription on the headstone of his predecessor in that role would be an ample epitaph to Hansard also.
It doesn’t seem right or fair. Most especially when placed against the backdrop of the lengths which are having to be gone to to accommodate the return of entities who are an absolute slurry stain on the image and wellbeing of the nation.
‘Dubliner’. For if looking like him, sounding like him and singing his music wasn’t signpost enough, Glen Hansard was the modern equivalent of roguish decency that says ‘Dubliness’ more than anything else in the world.
Undoubtedly best epitomised by the Christmas Eve busking session prompted by him on Grafton Street and which raised much needed funds for various charitable causes which he championed throughout the year and his tragically shortened career.
To somebody of my vintage, Glen Hansard’s death is the Luke Kelly passing our lifetime. Have no doubt, his legacy, memory and music will live on and inspire others to follow his lead for generations to come.
It is just a heartbreaking tragedy that the world has lost him long, long before his time.
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