The following obituary for DR MacDonald appeared in the Herald newspaper.
The Gaelic language movement and the shinty community both suffered a huge loss when DR MacDonald died in the Highland Hospice in Inverness on Saturday 6 March 2010.
That the language is still spoken by so many on Skye, and the game is played at all on the island, is in no little part due to this man.
Donald Ruairidh MacDonald, known to everyone as DR, spent his entire teaching career in the Gaelic department of Portree High School. He joined his friend and mentor the late John Steele in 1966, and succeeded him as principal teacher. His efforts over nearly four decades to promote the language's cause within the old Scottish Office, the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, the Scottish Examination Board and his union the EIS, were Olympian.
But he always held the most important work was in the classroom, where generations of islanders embraced their Gaelic heritage with his encouragement. Amongst those that passed through the Gaelic department in his time were the founding members of rock band Runrig. He took quiet pride in their creativity and attachment to the language.
His own extraordinary commitment to Gaelic education was recognised in 1993 with the award of an MBE. He accepted the honour as an endorsement of the cause of Gaelic.
It was the same year that DR suffered the cruelest of blows with the death of his wife Catriona, aged just 41. The daughter of the celebrated poet Sorley MacLean, she herself had been a tireless worker for Gaelic particularly in the development of Gaelic pre-school playgroups. He never truly recovered from the loss, but he had three young sons to bring up. This he made his life's work. He was devoted to them, and they to him. One is following in his footsteps as a Gaelic teacher and all three are stalwarts of Skye Camanachd, the shinty team which largely owes its existence to DR.
A native of North Uist, he was born in Tighearraidh on the west side of the island. During his three years at Bayhead Junior Secondary, the headmaster apparently had taken them for shinty just twice.
He went on to Portree HS in 1954 where the game was hardly played. It was while at Glasgow University, after national service in Germany, that he got involved in Scotland's ancient sport. He played for the university and was also one of founder members of now defunct Glasgow Kelvin club.
Shinty was all but dead when he returned to Portree, so he began coaching it initially in the high school and subsequently in primary schools. Cup winning school sides followed, which were to grow into a revitalised Skye Camanachd.
DR played for the team over many years sustaining a bad leg break along the way. He also coached and subsequently managed the side.
It went on to win the coveted Camanachd Cup in 1990. DR attended that final in Fort William, but rather than attend the post match celebrations, where he would have been widely feted, he got in his car and drove his family back to Skye. Nobody that knew him was surprised. That was his self-effacing way.
On hearing of his death Hugh Dan MacLennan, shinty's historian, said of his friend "His leadership qualities were quite immense. He was an extraordinary teacher, coach and mentor to generations of Skye pupils and in particular the athletes who represented the island and their schools and culture with distinction. There has never been, arguably, anyone who deserved a Camanachd Cup win more than DR and it was to his eternal credit that he managed to sow the seeds which were to bear fruit so spectacularly in 1990."
But there was much more to the man, than sport. A bibliophile, he built up a matchless library of books in Gaelic and English, particularly about the Highlands and Islands. He was immersed in the area's folklore and personified the Gael's closeness to his environment, particularly knowledgeable about the birdlife. He opined once that if he had his time again, and Gaelic was not in such a precarious state, he would chose to study ecology.
Certainly he was never happier than when working in his large garden in the Braes area of Skye, and was notoriously difficult to extricate from it. "Perhaps in the autumn" was his polite way of turning down most holiday invitations. "But this is the autumn DR", cut little ice with him simply deferring the matter to the next spring.
However his sons did bushwhack him into crossing the Atlantic twice in recent years, the latter trip occasioned by the eldest marrying a Canadian.
DR's natural reserve sometimes disguised his wonderful sense of mischief and grasp of the ridiculous which he kept right to the end, as he tried hard to put people at their ease and lighten their sadness over what he, and they, knew was to come.
DR MacDonald; Born 17 February 1937 - Died 6 March 2010.
This obituary was written by David Ross, Highland Correspondent of the Herald. Mr Ross is DR’s brother-in-law – they were each married to daughters of the late bard Sorley MacLean.