Glen Hansard, The World Cup, and Mayo's All Ireland Victory: "Great musicians and great athletes are of us and for us, as are we for them"

In other times these would have been halcyon days. A long, hot summer, the hay saved, a World Cup to follow and the All Ireland championships burnishing long sunny days, with what Eamon de Valera once styled ‘the contest of athletic youths’.

But in 2026, all happiness is circumscribed by global disorder and vast threats from fire, war, water, disaster, terror and technology, their curdling clouds blacking out the sun, raining literal and metaphorical death, destruction, ash and sulphur on an already bleeding and broken earth.

And it’s likewise circumscribed by the terrible, unforeseeable, inexplicable death of Glen Hansard. The extinguishing of such an extraordinary life-force is inconceivable. Yet, there he is, gone.

Up here on Hog Hill, as in countless places in Ireland and across the world, news of his death was met with shock and then a long, stunned silence, a vacuum. Joy, hope and oxygen sucked from land and sea, a blunt force trauma of the mind, the heart, the soul, the imagination.

What are we to make of such a tragedy? How are we to come to terms with it? To find enough words, breath, strength, or stability to contemplate and express the shock and loss?

Some find comfort in prayer. If that’s you, fair enough. For others it will be in despair. But for most it’s through coming together, in community, for want of a better word, sharing memories and reminders of times, places, songs, relationships, heroes and heroics, all the things that make up who we are and aspire to be, and almost always the good rather than bad.

And that would be in keeping with Glen Hansard himself. He was an exceptionally warm, open, curious and generous person and, when he played, he and his audience were bonded, mutually engaged, a community, with all the rapport and inclusivity that word implies. A good person.

TEMPTATION TO RETALIATE

It’s tragically ironic that many of the stadia where music has been, and will yet be, performed this year, and where Glen Hansard might even have made a surprise, and always welcome, appearance, also heaved with excitement as sporting encounters ebbed and flowed, throbbing with enthusiasm, hope, jitters and joy, and yes, for some, disappointment.

For all that we’ve heard in recent times about toxic behaviours both on and off sporting fields, 2026 substantially changed the narrative, accentuating the positive and shushing the negative.

There are many examples. The All-Ireland Gaelic Football Championship final was one, pulsating, exhilarating, joyous and, in the end, an epoch-breaking victory for the underdogs, Mayo.

Ever tried, ever failed has long been Mayo’s mantra. Seventy five years without an All Ireland? Jaysus, that’s a famine. Three generations. Despite a supply line of talented footballers, and boundless hope and encouragement from their supporters around the world, the quest always faltered.

No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.

26 July 2026; Mayo players celebrate with the Sam Maguire cup after the GAA Football All-Ireland Senior Championship final match between Kerry and Mayo at Croke Park in Dublin. Photo by Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile

And then, in 2026, success at last.

The game itself was remarkable for the positivity of both teams, and their sportsmanship, their embrace of skill and athleticism rather than force and aggression. With new rules encouraging long-range shooting, the spectacle was open, fast and furious, but with little fouling or acting up. It was a beautiful game.

That it marked the end of Mayo’s long torture made it all the sweeter and the celebrations all the deeper. There wasn’t a dry eye in the stadium. A global community that dared to hope again and again finally got its reward. The green and red flags flew at full mast.

But the occasion was also marked by the grace, courtesy and generosity of Kerry fans who stayed in place till after the cup was raised, warmly applauding the victors, and likewise the Kerry players who remained on the pitch, congratulating the victors individually and as a team. It was heart-warming stuff, the very best of us rather than the worst.

The world needs more of such courtesy, this willingness to see a game in a bigger context, to apply a set of values and appropriate behaviours, to acknowledge that nobody has a right to win and that losing is not dishonourable, to eschew the temptation to retaliate, to be generous and respectful, to know that there’s always next year.

UNBREAKABLE BONDS

That final drew over 82,000 spectators to Croke Park. The attendance at the World Cup final in New Jersey was almost exactly the same (80,663). But there the similarity ends, both on and off the field.

Gaelic football is an amateur game, still defiantly faithful to its community foundations, whereas FIFA’s Association football is adrift in a moral and political haze of greed, ego and corruption, of cronyism, bling and bloat, the plaything of oligarchy. Panem et circensis, as the Roman poet Juvenal put it.

The final was a grossly expensive, over-long ordeal, spoiled by the cynicism and hardman ways of Argentina’s players, compounded by their petulance, discourtesy and aggression after the final whistle. But at least the best team won.

Afterwards, the Spanish coach Luis de la Fuente called the Argentinians’ behaviour “intolerable, unacceptable” and praised his team for not rising to the bait: “Our players always kept their composure and behaved like true professionals”. Or amateurs, as the GAA might point out.

Throughout, it was the minnows who flew the flag for dreamers, teams like Cabo Verde. They frightened seven shades of shit out of Argentina and their second goal in that game, by Sidny Lopes Cabral, was voted the Hyundai Goal of the Tournament.

Irish interest, unsurprisingly, focused on his colleague Pico Lopes, captain of Shamrock Rovers but, for those weeks, a hero doing what every footballer dreams of, going head to head with the millionaire football elite at the World Cup.

There was a civic reception for him in Lourdes Celtic FC in Eamon Ceannt Park in Crumlin. Speaking to children there he said, “I didn’t just learn my football here, I learned my values, my principles and my morals and how to be a good person.” He urged them to have a dream and “be a believer”, adding: “This is what football does, this is what sport does. It brings communities together...”

The same goes for music. We can shed and share salty tears of gladness and sorrow, of pain and loss and of joy and celebration. The great musicians and great athletes are of us and for us, as are we for them. They reach into our hearts and souls for inspiration, and to entertain and inspire. It’s less about living our best lives and more about being our best selves.

In so doing, they forge unbreakable bonds with us, come hell or high water, fire and brimstone, failure or success. The memories thus forged shape us and our world, give us meaning and identity, help us navigate and negotiate the twists and turns we, ourselves and with others, encounter along the way.

And so, we rejoice at their success and grieve at their losses and, especially, our loss of them when the curtain falls, as with Glen Hansard.

It’s the love that always speaks its name.