The Bookshelf Live: Remembering Glen Hansard
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Well, good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to our Lunchtime Live. It is Wednesday, Wednesday, lunchtime, July 29th. It's always lovely to have you with us. Obviously, we are on YouTube and on Insta Live. So if you're watching us, welcome aboard and feel free to comment and leave a note if you wish and ask a question. Always welcome and always lovely to hear from you. And then we package this up as a regular podcast. So you could be going for a walk already listening to it. And we are the past in a way. So that sounds a bit mad, but you know what I'm trying to say. And we have lots of places to go today. I was in Ballymun Library yesterday. I really want to tell you about that. A couple of books I'd love to talk to you about, as always.
An anime film, strangely, that I watched that I really enjoyed. And another visit to Geoffrey Archer's penthouse, which is completely fever dream stuff. But I'll tell you about that also in the course of the next little while. So that's the plan. If you want to share with us what you're reading, watching, looking at or where you're going, we'd love to hear from you on anything you have for us in that regard, which would be great. But obviously, this morning, I was working away on my Sunday show for Onik, which goes out around Ireland on Sunday morning. which is a lovely thing to do. But just before the show started, two of the senior members of management took me aside and said, listen, we think we have some terrible news.
And sure enough, it was soon thereafter confirmed that Glenn Hansard had died in the early hours of this morning. And it is shocking news. So I just want to share some thoughts on that. I don't want to be one of those people who says he was a friend of mine. He wasn't. I knew him a lot and quite well from simply from work, from coming in and out of studios. I went to see Glenn in the Purty Kitchen, Purty Loft in Dun Laoghaire when I was probably about 22 or 23. I had some very good friends who were very, very dear friends of his and have been up until this day. And so he was kind of in my orbit a little bit. And then I got into TV and radio and he became a regular guest. So what do we say about Glenn?
It's very hard to condense it down because he was such an extraordinary talent. And what I loved about Glenn Hansard was when he was in the mode, when he was in what Blind Boy would call the flow state of a musician, he was just on another planet. And he took us with him. And that's what made him very, very special. Some of those beautiful first albums that I used to listen to as a young 20-something that became a soundtrack of my life and so many of your lives. I posted a few bits and pieces on Instagram earlier on when I heard the news. And it's been a while since I've had such a visceral reaction from followers, from people who are desperately upset So I'm thinking of you today. I really mean that.
And obviously his family, he has a little boy. I remember he was on the Late Late Show, Glenn was, and he was telling us about being a dad and how moved he was by the experience. And I'm sure he had lots of plans. And that's not, that's nowhere it's going to be, the best laid plans. So when he'd come on to the show, it was always fun because he was a great storyteller, great singer, great poet, great songwriter, great performer. And he was also a great conductor of people. And you might say, what are you talking about? Well, we did some specials, including the Busk special during COVID and Shane McGowan special. When the musicians, who might be all walking in 10 different directions at the same time, were going all over the shop,
Glenn would come in and say, everybody, pull it together now, let's do it. He conducted the busk in Grafton Street in Dublin, which became the busk outside the gaiety where the likes of Bono and Imelda May and Mundy and all the great singers from Ireland would gather around and make a load of money for homeless charities, which was very thoughtful of him and he stood by it. And my poor friend Oisin in London was on to me today because he was involved with the London side of the book.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:03–5:16
2
What happened when Glen Hansard's death was announced and how did Ryan react?
5:16–9:15
3
How did Ryan describe Glen Hansard’s talent and live performances?
9:15–14:49
4
What charitable work and social causes did Glen Hansard champion?
14:49–23:40
5
How did listeners respond online and what messages stood out about Glen?
23:40–34:10
6
What did Ryan learn from his visit to Ballymun Library and the Lighthouse Project?
34:10–43:40