My friend and creative partner Dónal Cox, who has died aged 78, was a respected actor, voiceover artist and inspiring communicator who found unexpected purpose in life after losing his voice to laryngeal cancer.
The eldest of four children, he was born in Mullingar, County Westmeath, Ireland. His parents, Catherine (nee McDonald) and Joseph, ran a grocery business. Dónal showed an early love of language, and a sense of the theatrical acquired as a cathedral altar boy. At 17, while a pupil at Belcamp college, Dublin, his experience of playing Hamlet proved a defining moment.
