“So you want to know all the “whys” and “whys” of the Irish? What makes them like this, you ask? Well then listen. I knew, in fact, only one, but we met one hundred and forty-four nights in a row. Let's take a closer look: take a closer look at this man and, perhaps, you will see a whole people emerging from the gray drizzle to disappear again into the fog; watch out, they're coming! Look, they've already passed! The Irishman's name was Nick. In the autumn of 1953, I was writing a script in Dublin. Every single day I would get into a taxi and drive the thirty miles between the River Liffey and the gray Georgian manor where my director/producer kept his hunting pack. Autumn, winter and early spring I wrote eight pages a day, in the evenings we discussed them, and towards midnight, ready to return to the Royal Hibernian Hotel, I woke up the Kilcock telephone operator and asked to be connected to the warmest (albeit unheated) place in village..."