Irish Examiner view: Call to return Irish ‘giant’

Two-times Booker Prize winner Hilary Mantel has suggested that the 18th-century skeleton of Irish ‘giant’ Charles Byrne (7ft 6in) be repatriated from London to his native Derry. Picture: George Miles

Two-times Booker Prize winner Hilary Mantel has reignited the question of research ethics and human remains with her suggestion that the 18th-century skeleton of Irish ‘giant’ Charles Byrne (7ft 6in) be repatriated from London to his native Derry.

In his day, Byrne was something of a celebrity — “the most extraordinary curiosity ever known”, as one newspaper put it — and after his death his bones were displayed, against his wishes, at the Hunterian Museum run by the Royal College of Surgeons.