Mourners fill a Dublin museum wake for singer Glen Hansard before his funeral

Thousands of mourners filed through Dublin's Irish Museum of Modern Art on August 3 for a public wake for singer Glen Hansard, who died July 29 at age 56 following a motorcycle crash, SPIN reported that day. Hansard lay in repose in a wicker coffin inside IMMA's Baroque Chapel in Kilmainham, where fans queued throughout the day sharing memories of seeing him perform.

His funeral followed the next day, August 4, at St Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin, broadcast live to crowds outside and streamed by RTE News and RIP.ie. Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder and Marketa Irglova, Hansard's longtime collaborator from the Swell Season and the film Once, performed "Song of Good Hope" backed by Hansard's band the Frames, a song he and Vedder had frequently duetted on in recent years. U2's Bono played a spoken word version of "A Beautiful Day," reworking its lyrics in tribute, and read a voicemail poem sent to him by Patti Smith on the day Hansard died. "Everyone who met him, they just remember the day they met him," Bono told mourners.

Hansard's brother Gary performed an original song, "I Can See God," Lisa O'Neill played "Old Note," and singer songwriter Damien Dempsey offered "Sing All Our Cares Away." Poet Breanndan O Beaglaoich spoke in Gaelic and English, calling Hansard "a one-off person whose likes again we won't meet." The service closed with a mass singalong of Bob Dylan's "Forever Young," led by Liam O Maonlai with Vedder, Bono, the Edge, Damien Rice, Imelda May and Paddy Casey, followed by an impromptu run through the Dubliners' "The Old Triangle," a song Hansard himself often performed as a former busker on Dublin's streets.

Hansard's family asked that, in lieu of flowers, mourners donate to the Simon Community and Ukrainian Action, causes he had long supported; he started an annual Christmas Eve busking event for the Simon Community in 2010. He had won the Oscar for Best Original Song in 2008 for "Falling Slowly" with Irglova, from John Carney's film Once, in which the pair also starred. Tributes have come in from Bruce Springsteen, Warren Ellis, Rachel Zegler and former Irish president Michael D. Higgins, and footage emerged this week of his final live performance, at a Dublin pub just hours before his death.

The earlier report of Hansard's death itself carried the news of the crash before this wake and funeral coverage followed.