CLASSICAL | BRYAN APPLEYARD
How the 8ft Irish Giant became an opera star
The Aldeburgh Festival will premiere Sarah Angliss’s opera Giant, about a celebrity in 18th-century London who wasn’t allowed to rest in peace
Natural fit: the composer Sarah Angliss
EMILE HOLBA
The Sunday Times
Charles Byrne died in 1783 aged 22. Known as the Irish Giant, he was thought to be well over 8ft tall. Later studies of his skeleton suggest he was a mere 7ft 7in in height — still a giant. He was a celebrity in London and a very popular figure. “The finest display of human nature they ever saw,” one newspaper reported. But towards the end of his life his health was failing.
A surgeon, John Hunter, who was a collector of strange samples, offered to buy Byrne’s corpse. The Irish Giant feared he would be dissected after death. Friends agreed to encase him in a lead coffin and take him to Margate, where he would be buried at sea. But Hunter intercepted them, taking
