wfgodot
Former Member
- Joined
- Mar 4, 2009
- Messages
- 30,166
- Reaction score
- 795
Why can't this gentle giant rest in peace? The undignified fight
over the skeleton of an 8ft 4in colossus exhibited as a freak in his lifetime
over the skeleton of an 8ft 4in colossus exhibited as a freak in his lifetime
And what might an eight-foot-tall Irish Giant most fear?He was so tall that he could light his pipe from a street lamp. He was said to be more than 8ft 4in (although his skeleton suggests he was actually nearer 8ft). His voice sounded like thunder, his hands and feet were immense and he had a gentle manner when he was sober.
Charles Byrne, known as the Irish Giant, was the toast of Georgian London after arriving to seek his fortune at the age of 21 and being put on show as a freak.
People flocked to see him. Newspapers printed breathless reports of his astonishing size. The King and Queen received him, and the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire the leading lights of fashionable society took their friends to see Byrne.
---
Anything perhaps being done to rectify this sad fate?A devout Catholic, mindful of the after-life, he left strict instructions that his body should be buried at sea in a lead-lined coffin: he was desperate that his remains escape the attentions of surgeons and scientists who were eager to dissect it and place it on public display.
But his last wishes were cruelly ignored and his worst fears realised when an eminent surgeon managed to snatch the body and put his skeleton on display in the Royal College of Surgeons where it remains today.
much more - lengthy, hugely interesting article on the Irish Giant, with pictures, at Daily Mail link aboveNow two academics have mounted a campaign to fulfil his dying wishes and give the Irish Giant the burial he wanted. Writing in the British Medical Journal, Thomas Muinzer, a legal researcher at Queens University Belfast, and Len Doyal, professor of medical ethics at the University of London, argue there is no scientific benefit from continuing to display his remains.
What has been done cannot be undone, but it can be morally rectified. Surely it is time to respect the memory and reputation of Byrne, they say.
---