Patrick and Alice Gavigan, from Leixlip, Co Kildare, are on holiday in Rome and said the experience felt surreal.

Cardinal Kevin Farrell was asked in 2019 by Pope Francis to take on the role managing the Vatican during the ‘interregnum’ between papacies.

Father Tim Bartlett helped organise Francis’s visit to the island in 2018

Cardinal Kevin Farrell, 77, who lived in Drimnagh, Dublin, made the announcement on Easter Monday.