Don Akenson on St Patrick

"Converting the Irish was not a difficult business, Padraig soon realized, as long as one made it through the first three minutes, and he always did, God be praised. Padraig, steadfast soldier that he was, nevertheless swithered through the first sixty breaths in the presence of any king or aristocrat whom he had not previously encountered. Those were the moments when the Celtic warrior aspect of the Irish personality was dominant and that is a very binary sort of mind. Either the eminence in question practices his backhand and sends ones head rolling, to the great amusement of his retainers, or he turns into an overbearing host, laying on the crackling pig and homebrew in military quantities and spends the next seventy-two hours exchanging stories of heroes and gods. That's when you hook him..."