Forty-five years on the missions in Africa would seem enough for anybody, but not for Sister Katie Farrell. Last year her superiors asked her to retire but she refused. And yesterday, when asked if she was still working, 85-year-old diamond-bright eyes flashed a look of indignation.
"Yes, we never stop," said the freckle-faced Kilkenny native, sipping a soda under the shade of a tree.
Sr Katie had just presented a gift to President Mary McAleese, who came to see AIDS and family projects run by the Daughters of Mary and Joseph as part of an 11-day visit to highlight the work of Irish missionaries in Africa.
During the years of despot Idi Amin, his soldiers put some of the Mbarara nuns under house arrest. They were later routed by liberating troops from Tanzania.
But these days the biggest threat to the Irish mission to Uganda is not the gun. In the 1960s there were 30 Irish Daughters of Mary and Joseph in Uganda. Now there are five, mostly in their 60s. Sr Maureen O'Connell travelled from her school on the Rwandan border to meet Mrs McAleese.
Although the tone of the day was celebratory, it was also dominated by the spectre of HIV/AIDS, which has ravaged entire communities in Uganda.
President McAleese was welcomed in Mbarara with red roses and a shy smile by 11-year-old Jackline Nawera. Jackline's mother died of AIDS many years ago, leaving her brother to fend for them. But now she is being cared for thanks to sponsorship from a Drogheda man.
At Kitovu hospital, run by the Medical Missionaries of Mary, the President met Donegal native Sr Davnet O'Kane, who has been running the laboratory and blood bank for 15 years. "Over half the patients tested for HIV last year were positive," she said.