Oscar-winning Irish musician Glen Hansard died in a motorcycle accident in Dublin.

Hansard, 56, was the frontman of rock group The Frames and also appeared in The Commitments.

He won an Academy Award for Best Original Song for Falling Slowly in 2008, which he wrote for the low-budget film Once.

Hansard was born in Dublin in 1970 and busked before landing the role of Outspan Foster in Alan Parker’s The Commitments, a 1991 film about a soul band formed by a group of young Dublin workers.

He had founded The Frames a year earlier.

Police are appealing for witnesses following the single-vehicle crash, which occurred on Lower Road in Lucan, west Dublin.

Emergency services were informed shortly before 04:30 local time.

Hansard was also half of the rock duo The Swell Season and released solo albums, including Did’t He Ramble, which was nominated for a Grammy for Best Folk Album in 2016.

He was the father of a three-year-old boy.

In a 2023 interview with BBC’s Radio Ulster, Hansard said he was in a “very different place to what he had been in before” after the birth of his son eight months earlier.

“This has completely changed, in the best possible way, everything I know.”

He added: “It’s absolutely incredible, I can’t believe I’ve been on the other side of this chasm for so long.”