We would like to inform all our colleagues that Dónall Ó Riagáin (1941–2026) has passed away; we were connected to him through decades of professional and personal collaboration.
In the second half of the 1970s, Dónall Ó Riagáin proposed the idea that the less widely used language communities of EU member states should have a European coordinating body to promote their interests at the EU level.
He worked closely with interested Members of the European Parliament, particularly John Hume. At his initiative, the European Parliament adopted the Arfé Resolution in 1982, which officially recognized and called for the protection of minority and regional languages. This led to the establishment of the European Bureau for Lesser Used Languages (EBLUL), with Dónall Ó Riagáin elected as its first president.
He was appointed Secretary General and continued to advocate for marginalized languages in Europe until his retirement. He worked on various language programs and served as a member of CAHLR, the Council of Europe committee that drafted the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.
After leaving EBLUL, he worked to promote peace and language rights in Northern Ireland and participated in numerous missions to the Russian Federation and other countries of the former USSR, such as Kalmykia, Bashkortostan, Buryatia, Khakassia, Moldova, and Georgia.
Until the end of his life, he remained very active in the field of minority rights, particularly in the movement for his native Irish language.