Glen Hansard’s widow, the Finnish poet Maire Saaritsa, thanked her late husband “for the life we shared, searching for truth and beauty side by side”.
Fighting back tears, she said they found that truth and beauty in their three-year-old son, Christy.
“He cannot be here today, he is too young to witness or understand an event of such scale,” she says.
But she added: “The bright spirit he inherited from his father is with us.”
Irish superstar Bono recited U2’s song A Beautiful Day. As the recital ended he began to sing the song, urging the congregation to join in.
U2’s lead guitarist The Edge also attended the service and approached the microphone to join in the version of Beautiful Day as his band-mate Bono finished his recital.
At the end of the service, the coffin left the church to a musical send-off, with mourners inside the building continuing to sing along to a rendition of Bob Dylan’s Forever Young.
