‘Giant’ to get sea burial 200 years late

EXPERTS have called for the skeleton of Charles Byrne, the “Irish giant”, to be removed from a London museum where it has been on display for almost 200 years and buried at sea, as he wanted.

At seven feet seven inches tall (2.3 metres), Byrne was a celebrity in his lifetime and when he died in 1783 at the age of 22, the renowned surgeon and anatomist John Hunter was keen to acquire his skeleton.

According to the British Medical Journal (BMJ), Byrne was terrified of becoming one of Hunter’s specimens and wanted to be buried at sea.