Hallelujah: Cohen comes home

Last night was something of a homecoming for Leonard Cohen.

He has spoken often of how moved he was by the reception he received when he first played the Royal Hospital, Kilmainham, in 2008. That show marked the start of a remarkable comeback: Cohen has toured almost constantly since.

Cohen took the stage, as scheduled, at 7.15pm. He fell to one knee, as if in prayer, as he led off with Dance Me to the End of the Love. He followed that with The Future, one of his bleakest songs. “When they said repent, repent, repent, I wondered what they meant,” he sang, swaying gently in the chill September air.