Patric Duigenan (1735-1816) was a convert to the Church of Ireland, a vehement opponent of the Catholicism he had been born into, a lawyer, a politician, and a secretary of the Orange Order. I love this paragraph from his entry in the indispensable DIB:
Duigenan's character was a mass of contradictions; he could swing alarmingly, and inconsistently, from one position to another. He was rude and overbearing in public, always feuding with someone, yet in private was renowned for his kindness and good humour. Involved in at least two duels, each time he acquitted himself strangely; on one occasion he refused to fire, a second time he brought a blunderbuss on to the field. The extremism of his writings was not helped by his style: he wrote rapidly and never checked what he had written, believing that this would only lead him to delete the most offensive sections.
Read the whole thing here, if you're so inclined.
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