Ludovico could feel an anxiety attack coming on—his breath started to quicken; his head began to pound. Many years had passed since he last suffered such an attack, and following numerous—and expensive—sessions with his therapist, he remained hopeful that they were well behind him. But under the circumstances, such an intrusion was the least he could expect.
“But you said he was Pádraig!”
“No, I never said that,” she calmly replied.
The nun didn’t have much of an interest in passing any blame; however, if this sweet but incredibly doe-eyed chap wanted to survive in the big, bad world, he desperately needed to hear a bit of tough love.
“Ludovico, it was you and your colleagues who believed that I was some long-lost lover from Riccardo’s early life,” Sister Agatha firmly reminded him. “It was you and your colleagues who thought that I looked like the sculptures in his room. It was you and your colleagues who assumed that the Pádraig in my story—that you and your colleagues demanded I tell—was Riccardo. And, it was you and you alone who insisted on bringing him to Ireland. Not me!”
“Oh, Madonna!” Ludovico uttered, before collapsing onto his knees.
The courtesy that the media had paid the grieving lover to compose herself in private had now come to end, and the army of photographers and cameramen, hungry to get the grieving woman’s reaction on camera, emerged from behind the tree.
“But why didn’t you say something?” he muttered under his breath. “You knew that I was mistaken, and you were very much aware that a journey like that would kill him.”
“And as luck would have it, it seems that that is precisely what Riccardo wanted to happen, too,” she reported, leaving the innocent nurse more confused than ever.
“Being a super-centenarian isn’t a piece of cake for everyone, you know,” she explained. “Oh, what I’d do for a slice of Black Forest Gateau right now!”
Ludovico jumped to his feet and grabbed her by the arm, their backs now faced the world’s media.
“Answer me this then: why did you come to Stella della Laguna in the first place?”
“Because almost fifty years ago, Ludovico, I made a vow to the most important person who ever walked in, and out, and back into my life—and about sixty seconds ago, I realised it, which is why I can’t stop smiling.”
“What vow?” he quizzed, his brain valiantly resisting the urge to explode.
“Just before he died, Pádraig asked for my help to settle an old score. He charged me with exacting revenge on his mother, Mrs Keogh, and demanded that I prove her doomed prognosis for me wrong by doing something so marvellous that my name would be etched in the history books forever.”
In that moment, the nurse finally understood everything.
“So you decided to become the world’s oldest person?”
“Bullseye!” Sister Agatha boldly replied.
She gently took Ludovico’s face in her hands, drew it close to her own, and wiped away the tears that began to stream down his face.
“Trust me, dear heart. I have a feeling that this episode will be the making of you. Dust off your wings because you are about to fly,” she encouraged, before promptly returning to her legion of admirers.
Now that the one-hundred-and-eighteen-year-old had been decorated with such a prestigious honour, the oldest person in the world had duties to fulfil and responsibilities to carry out, and it just wouldn’t do, standing around yapping all day.
Epilogue
IRISH INDEPENDENT, 8 FEBRUARY 2026
Today, it seemed as if the rain poured down from the heavens above to make room for its newest arrival, Sister Agatha, who died last Sunday, on what was her hundred and twenty-eighth birthday, making her the oldest person to have ever lived.
In breaking with the funereal traditions maintained by the Order of Saint Aloysius for over three-hundred years, Sister Agatha’s send-off was a public event—a joyous celebration to say one final farewell to a woman who had become an unlikely romantic heroine in her thirteenth decade.
Determined to be reunited with her childhood sweetheart, Pádraig Keogh, at the age of one hundred and eighteen, Sister Agatha travelled to Venice where he was residing in a residential home for the elderly. With the assistance of Ludovico Bianchi, a nurse there, she brought him home to Kilberry, County Meath, for one last time. Pádraig died soon after their epic voyage, but only after inspiring the world that nobody is ever too old to have one final adventure.
Taking the mantle of the world’s oldest person from her one true love, Sister Agatha then spent the next decade being instrumental in the opening of a shelter for victims of domestic abuse that was built on the grounds of the Order of Saint Aloysius’ convent in Navan. The centre was partly funded by an extremely generous donation of over a million euro—made anonymously some ten years ago—and the invaluable service has since become a source of envy throughout the world, thanks to its scope, resources, and success rate in helping families make fresh starts.
When she wasn’t investing her energy into her philanthropic duties, Sister Agatha was a regular fixture on the social scene, frequently appearing on the red carpet for nightclub openings and film premières. One such movie was called You Don’t Know What You’ve got Till it’s Gondola, an Oscar-winning biopic of her own story, which was co-written by Mr Bianchi.
Present at the burial included a multitude of well-known faces from the celebrity world, not to mention a rainbow of colourful characters who crossed paths with the late nun over the years.
“She transformed my life,” Dougie McGregor, who travelled over from Glasgow for the funeral, said afterwards. “Thanks to her, I met the love of my life, Tayri Chakchouk, and even though my bride passed away before we cut the wedding cake, those few precious married hours we had together were the most magical of my entire life. Again, it was all thanks to Sister Agatha.”
The one-hundred-and-twenty-eight-year-old’s death coincided with the Memorial Day of Saint Agatha of Sicily, the martyred virgin saint whose name she took when she first entered the convent.
A legend and a champion, Sister Agatha will be deeply missed by all the people she touched throughout her long life.
By way of a parting joke, much amusement was gotten from the quirky epitaph that the super-centenarian requested to be written on her gravestone:
Milk has an expiry date, but life isn’t milk.
Amen to that.
ABOUT DOMHNALL O'DONOGHUE
Hailing from Navan in the royal county of Meath, Domhnall is a graduate of the Bachelor in Acting Studies Programme, Trinity College Dublin, later completing a Master's in Screenwriting at Dún Laoghaire IADT. He now works as an actor and a journalist, dividing his time between Galway, where he films TG4’s flagship series, Ros na Rún, and Venice, where he and his Italian lover continuously promise their well-worn livers that they will refrain from quaffing so much Prosecco. (Unfortunately, it seems some vows, just like nearby Rome, were not built in a day.)
Wine-drinking aside, for more than four years, Domhnall has also enjoyed the responsibility of being Assistant Editor at Irish Tatler Man, a title that won Consumer Magazine of the Year '15/16. Thanks to this role, he interviewed a host of high-profile names, such as Tommy Hilfiger, Chris Pine, Kevin Spacey, David Gandy and Jacques Villeneuve. As a screenwriter, Domhnall co-wrote the short film, A Clown’s Requiem, which was the recipient of funding from the Irish Film Board and premièred at the Galway Film Fleadh. With Co-operation Ireland, a peace-building charity, Domhnall works as an arts mentor. As a result of this work, he met Queen Elizabeth and President Higgins in Belfast in 2012.
When writing his debut novel, Sister Agatha: The World’s Oldest Serial Killer — a comedy thriller that follows a 118-year-old nun who will go to any length in her quest to become the globe’s most senior citizen — Domhnall, the actor, called upon his natural curiosity of the human spirit to create larger-than-life characters, while Domhnall, the journalist, drew upon his extensive experience as a trav
el writer to provide inspiration for the story’s numerous settings. And as for his fascination with religious orders and the Catholic Church? Being an enthusiastic altar boy for most of his childhood might be the best explanation for that.
Find Domhnall online:
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/domhnall.o.donoghue
Twitter - http://www.twitter.com/Domhnall1982
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/domhnall-o-donoghue-86b23941
Tirgearr Publishing - http://www.tirgearrpublishing.com/authors/ODonoghue_Domhnall
Sister Agatha Page 22
