Celebrating the gift of life — north and south

ORGAN donor families and recipients from across the Island of Ireland will come together to celebrate the gift of life at an event in Galway.

The event to be held at the Circle of Life National Organ Donor Commemorative Garden in Salthill on Saturday, May 23, will welcome Uachtarán nah Éireann, Catherine Connolly as the guest of honour.

She will be joined by a nine-year-old Belfast boy, Dáithí MacGabhann, to unveil a heritage stone from the 6th Century Bangor Abbey in Co. Down, which is being gifted by the Organ Donation & Transplant Community of Northern Ireland to its Sister Community in the South.

This will be the first time organ donor families and recipients, clinicians and health service personnel from the North and South of Ireland will come together to celebrate the gift of life which defines organ donation, and to promote the cause of donation and transplantation on an all-Island basis.

While this North-South collaborative event is designed to help create a greater sense of identification with, and connection to the Circle of Life Garden by the North’s organ donation transplantation community, it will also emphasise the importance of conversations and leaving loved ones in no doubt about one’s organ donation decision.

It will also reflect the important and potential benefits of an integrated and shared approach at every level to organ donation and transplantation, as organ donation saves lives and organ failure knows no borders.