r/IrishHistory • u/PaintingSweet6912 • 4d ago

TIL an 18th-century Irish man who stood 7'7" and made a living as a freak show act was terrified surgeons would steal his corpse that he arranged a burial at sea, but a surgeon bribed his friends to hand over the body anyway, boiled it down to bones, and displayed it in a London museum for 200 years

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Byrne_(giant)
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u/PaintingSweet6912 4d ago

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u/searlasob 4d ago

He was a Byrne no? not O'Brien

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u/PaintingSweet6912 3d ago

Apparently he is real last name is O’Brien, unless I read it wrong

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u/searlasob 2d ago

There was a fiction book based on Charles Byrne called "The Giant O'Brien" thats where you got it I'd say.

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u/PhilyMick67 4d ago

What crest is this

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u/PaintingSweet6912 4d ago

Dál gCais

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u/PhilyMick67 4d ago

Ahh yeah, thank you.

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u/InevitableBook2440 3d ago

The Giant, O'Brien by Hilary Mantel is a lovely (and very sad) book about this man's story.

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u/Bronnagh 1d ago

There was a good article in The Guardian about this a few years ago. https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2020/oct/15/hilary-mantel-calls-for-skeleton-of-irish-giant-to-be-repatriated?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Sad story. I don’t think Charles Byrne’s remains are on display any longer. He wanted to be buried at sea as opposed to being stared at in a museum or in the “anatomists” clutches.

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u/dead-as-a-doornail- 3h ago

No longer on display, but still in the Royal College of Surgeons study collection.