19 August 1963-1 February 2022
Eoin Collins was a leading rights activist and one of the architects of same-sex marriage in Ireland. He had an unshakeable commitment to social justice and was a leading proponent of community movements that tackled discrimination, exclusion and marginalisation.
Eoin had been a director of Nexus research co-operative, one of the
foremost facilitators of community development in Ireland, where his
capacity for empathy and vision for change placed him at the heart of
many human rights struggles.
“Eoin’s unique and formidable contribution was his innate unassuming commitment to equality – not just in the social or political sense, but in his everyday dealings with everyone with whom he worked.”
Brian Dillon, fellow director, Nexus
Collins graduated from Trinity College, Dublin with a degree in economics and political science and, having worked briefly in UK (1987), returned to University College Dublin to complete a master’s in economics in 1989, before joining Nexus.
Eoin was centrally involved with Gay & Lesbian Equality Network (GLEN) in a voluntary capacity upon he return to Dublin in 1989. In 2005, he joined the GLEN staff as director of policy change with a vision to achieve an Ireland where being LGBT would be unremarkable and valued. In perhaps the most pivotal moment of his work in this role, Collins was appointed by then Minister for Justice Michael McDowell to the Colley Group, which was chaired by Ann Colley, in 2006. The Colley Group was set up with narrow terms of reference that seemed designed to deter the group from examining marriage. It was a masterclass in advocacy and strategy to witness Eoin convince the group to conclude that only marriage would deliver full equality for same-sex couples. This subsequently became the government’s position. Political and legal consensus at the time was that same-sex marriage would require a referendum, for which there was no political appetite.
However, recognising the urgency of the need for protections for same-sex couples, Eoin then drove the campaign for politically-achievable civil partnership which had all the rights and protections of marriage that were legally possible. Despite the gloomy predictions of commentators and most political parties at the time, comprehensive civil partnership legislation passed through the Oireachtas in 2010, along with the foundations for family recognition legislation. All of this paved the way for the success of the marriage referendum in May 2015.
Eoin met Adalla, the love of his life, in Dublin in the early 2000s. Adalla, a nurse originally from the Philippines, moved to New York and Eoin joined him there in 2011. They married when federal marriage became possible in the United States in 2016 which enabled him to become a dual citizen. In New York, Collins continued his work on human rights and social change, working with ActKnowledge developing programmes and strategies with a wide variety of national and international organisations and becoming the first director of the Centre for Theory of Change.
Eoin died in February 2022 (aged 58) after a short illness. He is survived by his mother Dolores, his siblings Imelda, Deirdre, Oonagh, Ciarán and Niall, his mother-in-law Virginia, Adalla’s siblings Hazel and Dexter and a very wide circle of friends in Ireland and abroad.
Read more about Eoin’s life and career in his own words in the overview section.
Eoin Collins 