Saint Patrick of bitterness

I have read Philip Freeman's "St. Patrick of Ireland". Interesting account on the early history of Christianity and its connection to politics... However, two things haunt my thoughts after reading it. One is the recognition of the bitterness St. Patrick had to experience after his work in Ireland. Charged of some sort of bribe or using money in his mission he had to explain and justify something that most probably was just a common method in his otherwise clean and chaste, mission. These events show that that such bitterness is often inextricably connected to all missions, political, religious, social.... What happened to Walesa in his native Poland around mid of 2008 .....

The second thought is the apparent attempt of the author (Philip Freeman) to distance himself from another author writing of Patric - Thomas Cahill (see "How the Irish Saved Civilization") (and my early post about it). In some part of the book, he writes: "Irish did not saved civilization, civilization saved itself" (I'm not sure now about the exact wording, but the meaning is certainly true). Does Freeman try to be less pathetic ? Maybe I need to return to Thomas's book again ....