Among the 27-strong Irish team are liver, heart, pancreas and kidney recipients
Michael Dwyer, left, (49), from Cabinteely in Dublin, who will captain the Irish transplant games team in Canada, had a kidney transplant just over five years ago and will compete in a number of events including golf, the 5k walk, 10-pin bowling and badminton.
"I was 45 when I did an annual medical in work where I'm a chemical technician and they checked everything and said there was something wrong.
"They sent me for a scan and I asked the chap doing the scan to give it to me straight.
"He told me both kidneys were gone. It was a huge shock, because I would always have been relatively fit, playing Gaelic and soccer and badminton."
His renal failure was put down to an untreated streptococcal infection.
"I went on dialysis for nine months, which is a very short period compared with some people who are on dialysis," he says. He worked his shifts around a gruelling four-times-a-day dialysis regime at home.
Eventually, he was called for a transplant. The new kidney was inserted just behind the hip bone. His own remain in place but have little, if any, function.
"I have to take tablets in the morning and tablets at night. I don't find it difficult. The only thing I miss is five-a-side football. My wife and children got me into Glencullen Golf Club after the transplant and I like to have a game a week if possible."
Dwyer would like to see donor information carried more prominently in doctors' surgeries and even at major GAA matches, he says.
"I always carried a blood donor card and gave blood from when I was 18, never thinking I'd ever need it. Only for people who donate their loved one's organs, we wouldn't be here and we wouldn't be doing what we're doing.
"Every morning I get out of bed and I feel good, I think of the donor. I would love to meet the family, but I don't know whether that will ever take place. We have a remembrance mass every year and they have books with the names of all the people who died and donated.
"We talk to the families and it is very hard on them. But we try to say to them 'we're here because your loved ones have donated their organs, and only for you we wouldn't be here either'."
His wife Bernie and daughters Barbara and Georgina won't be travelling to Canada, but they'll be awaiting his return with a haul of medals.