Transplant Games Team Ireland in Kilcullen

Darren Cawley and James Nolan.

It might seem counterintuitive, but Darren Cawley believes he is a better person today than he would have been if his kidneys hadn't failed when he was a young student, writes Brian Byrne. That's what he told the Team Ireland group heading to the European Transplant & Dialysis Sports Championships 2026 in Arnhem, Netherlands, at a kit handover this morning in Kilcullen Community Centre.

Darren, who is today living with his second transplanted kidney, also said that it was his first Dialysis Games in Japan that turned around his mental attitude to his situation. “I went there as a sick person in my mind. Then I saw all these other young people competing. They had the exact same issues that I had, yet they were strong, fit, with a healthy mindset. All the things I didn't have at the time. They had a kidney issue, or a heart issue, or a liver issue. But they weren't sick. That took away my excuses, and I had to go on and grow and develop as a person."

It had been while studying for a qualification in sports in the UK that Darren had, over a short period of time, gone from being a healthy football-playing young man to a patient diagnosed with chronic renal failure. After developing some issues with his sight, he went to an optician who, after a thorough examination, told him he had to go to A&E immediately. "He wrote me a note, and whatever he wrote in it got me immediately to the head of the queue." At first, Darren didn't really understand the ramifications of the diagnosis. "When it did sink in, I realised I had gone from being a health and fitness student with my whole life planned ahead of me to having everything turned upside down."

He recalls that it took three things to help him deal with a situation where the mental and emotional burden was almost more than the physical. "Acceptance, developing a positive mindset, and taking action. People who are in our situation have experienced trauma and suffer from PTSD. Then we have to get to what I call PTG, post-traumatic growth." Once he had finally accepted that he would be a dialysis patient several times a week, it was a case of not being concerned with what he could no longer do, but what he actually could do around the situation. He established a pattern of reading positive books, mainly biographies of people to whom bad things had happened, and they then reached a better place. He also believes that daily affirmation – "I am happy and healthy, I am confident and courageous, I am decisive and enthusiastic" – rewired his brain, helping his mental resilience and self-image. "Everything I said is my reality now."

After what was a relatively short time in the general scheme of things, Darren got a transplant kidney, which made an immediate difference to his life again. But after a time, it failed, and he had to go back on dialysis. This time, for nine years, before another kidney became available and he was deemed well enough to avail of it. Key to dealing with the whole thing was exercise and staying fit, and challenging himself. That last included regularly climbing Croagh Patrick near his west of Ireland hometown. "While I was on dialysis, I climbed it every Christmas Day as an expression of hope. Since I got my second kidney, it has been a way of saying thanks. What I get from it is better than any Christmas dinner."

Darren is married to Aoife, and they have two boys. "When I was first sitting in the dialysis ward, I never imagined that I'd have a wife and two children. We talk about the 'gift of life' — the gift of life really isn't getting the transplant, it's what we do with that life afterwards. What we're capable of doing."

Early in his journey, Darren was asked by a local teacher to give a talk in school about his experiences. He says he had never been good at speaking in public, but when he talked to the children and got a round of real applause, it transformed his sense of self-worth. "I felt useful for the first time in a long time. I felt like I was a productive member of society, not a burden, not a drain. So since then, I have been promoting organ donation everywhere I go." That included taking part in the Rose of Tralee Festival as an escort while he was a dialysis patient, showing that having a kidney issue need not be life-limiting. 

Following Darren's talk at Kilcullen Community Centre, Team Ireland members were presented with their kit for the European Transplant Games, taking place in Arnhem from 21 June. Event organiser and local businessman James Nolan, now heading into his 39th year with a kidney donated by his sister Catherine, thanked everybody for their attendance, as well as the staff and management of the centre for once again making the facility available for the event.

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