Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-qsmjn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-23T09:12:46.977Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A Grave Situation: An Examination of the Legal Issues Raised by the Life and Death of Charles Byrne, the “Irish Giant”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 April 2013

Thomas L. Muinzer
Thomas L. Muinzer*
Affiliation:
Department of Law, Queen's University Belfast, Northern Ireland. Email: tmuinzer01@qub.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Charles Byrne was an eighteenth-century celebrity “Irish giant” who requested burial upon nearing death, but whose corpse was procured against his wishes by the surgeon John Hunter. Hunter reduced Byrne's corpse to its skeleton and exhibited it as the centerpiece of his vast anatomical collection. It has since remained on display in the Hunterian Museum, London. In 2011 it was announced that research conducted on the skeleton's DNA has revealed that several Northern Irish families share a common ancestry with Byrne. This article considers the legal issues raised by Byrne's story. The results of fieldwork undertaken by the author in Byrne's native townland are also discussed, where folk tradition suggests that Byrne wished to be buried foremost at a local site remembered today as “the Giant's Grave.”

Type
Research Article
Information
International Journal of Cultural Property , Volume 20 , Issue 1 , February 2013 , pp. 23 - 48
Copyright
Copyright © International Cultural Property Society 2013

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bailkin, Jordanna. The Culture of Property: The Crisis of Liberalism in Modern Britain. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2004.Google Scholar
Banwell, Caroline. “Should I Have Property in My Body?” UCL Jurisprudence Review 1 (1994): 1–20.Google Scholar
Barker, Alex W. “Archaeological Ethics: Museums and Collections.” In Ethical Issues in Archaeology, edited by Zimmerman, Larry J., Vitelli, Karen D., and Hollowell-Zimmer, Julie, 71–84. Oxford: Alma Mira, 2003.Google Scholar
Coke, Edward. The Third Part of the Institutes of the Law of England. Vol. 3. London: A. Crook, 1669.Google Scholar
Cornu, Marie, and Renold, Marc-André. “New Developments in the Restitution of Cultural Property: Alternative Means of Dispute Resolution.” International Journal of Cultural Property 17 (2010): 1–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cubbage, Eric. “The Tragic Story of Charles Byrne ‘the Irish Giant.’” The Tallest Man. http://www.thetallestman.com/pdf/charlesbyrne.pdf (2011) accessed 8 March 2012.Google Scholar
Curtis, Neil G. W. “Universal Museums, Museum Objects and Repatriation: The Tangled Stories of Things.” In Museum Studies: An Anthology of Contexts, edited by Carbonell, Bettina M, 2nd ed., 73–81. Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 2012.Google Scholar
Dawson, N. M. “‘National Antiquities’ and the Law.” Journal of Legal History 28, no. 1 (2007): 57–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Day, Angelique, and McWilliams, Patrick, eds. Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland: Parishes of Co. Londonderry I 1830, 1834, 1836, Vol. 6. Belfast: Queen's University Belfast, 1990.Google Scholar
Donaldson, Moyra. Miracle Fruit. Belfast, Northern Ireland: Lagan Press, 2010.Google Scholar
Doyal, Len, and Muinzer, Thomas. “Should the Skeleton of ‘the Irish Giant’ Be Buried at Sea?” British Medical Journal 343 (2011): 1290–92.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Doyal, Len, and Muinzer, Thomas. “Re: Should the Skeleton of ‘the Irish Giant’ Be Buried at Sea?” British Medical Journal Rapid Response. http://www.bmj.com/rapid-response/2012/02/01/re-should-skeleton-%E2%80%9C-irish-giant%E2%80%9D-be-buried-sea (1 February 2011) accessed 24 September 2012.Google Scholar
Elliott, Lisa M. “Property Rights of Ancient DNA: The Impact of Cultural Importance on the Ownership of Genetic Information.” International Journal of Cultural Property 16 (2009): 103–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fitz Gibbon, Kate. Who Owns the Past? Cultural Policy, Cultural Property, and the Law. London, UK: Rutgers, 2005.Google Scholar
Frankcom, Graham, and Musgrave, J. H.. The Irish Giant. London: Duckworth, 1976.Google Scholar
Frigo, Manlio. “The International Symposium ‘From Anatomic Collections to Objects of Worship: Conservation and Exhibition of Human Remains in Museums,’ Paris (France), February 22–23, 2008.” International Journal of Cultural Property 15 (2008): 437–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frigo, Manlio. “Ethical Rules and Codes of Honor Related to Museum Activities: A Complementary Support to the Private International Law Approach Concerning the Circulation of Cultural Property.” International Journal of Cultural Property 16 (2009): 49–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gallagher, Stephen. “Museums and the Return of Human Remains: An Equitable Solution?” International Journal of Cultural Property 17 (2010): 65–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gittings, Claire. Death, Burial and the Individual in Early Modern England. London, UK: Routledge, 1988.Google Scholar
Herewini, Te Herekiekie. “The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa (Te Papa) and the Repatriation of Koiwi Tangata (Maori and Moriori Skeletal Remains) and Toi Moko (Mummified Maori Tattooed Heads).” International Journal of Cultural Property 15 (2008): 405–406.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hubert, Jane. “Dry Bones or Living Ancestors?” International Journal of Cultural Property 1 (1992): 105–127.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jackson, Percival E.The Law of Cadavers and of Burial and Burial Places. New York: Prentice Hall, 1950.Google Scholar
Jones, D. Gareth. Speaking for the Dead: Cadavers in Biology and Medicine. Hampshire: Ashgate, 2000.Google Scholar
Kay, John. A Series of Original Portraits and Caricature Etchings: With Biographical Sketches and Anecdotes. Edinburgh: Hugh Paton, 1842.Google Scholar
Korbonits, Márta, al.., et “AIP Mutation in Pituitary Adenomas in the 18th Century and Today.” New England Journal of Medicine 364, no. 1 (2011): 43–50.Google Scholar
Matthew, H. C. G., and Harrison, Brian, eds., Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.Google Scholar
Matthews, Paul. “Whose Body? People as Property.” Current Legal Problems 36 (1983): 193–239.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mays, Simon. “Ethics and Human Remains.” In The Archaeology of Human Bones, edited by Mays, Simon, 2nd ed., 313–348. London, UK: Routledge, 2010.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCloskey, Ronan(director). Charles Byrne—The Irish Giant. BBC2 Northern Ireland Documentary. Belfast, Northern Ireland: British Broadcasting Corporation, 16 January 2011.Google Scholar
Mihesuah, Devon A., ed. Repatriation Reader: Who Owns American Indian Remains? Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2000.Google Scholar
Moore, Wendy. The Knife Man: Blood, Body Snatching and the Birth of Modern Surgery. Great Britain: Bantam Books, 2006.Google Scholar
Mulvaney, D. J. “Past Regained, Future Lost: The Kow Swamp Pleistocene Burials.” Antiquity 65 (1991): 12–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O'Keeffe, John. Recollections of the Life of John O'Keeffe. London: Coburn, 1826.Google Scholar
Ordnance Survey Office. Ordnance Survey of Ireland: Londonderry. Dublin, Ireland: Ordnance Office, 1833.Google Scholar
Ordnance Survey Office. Ordnance Survey of Ireland: Tyrone. Dublin, Ireland: Ordnance Office, 1834.Google Scholar
Panesar, Sukhninder. General Principles of Property Law. Harlow, UK: Longman, 2001.Google Scholar
Pawlowski, Mark. “Property in Body Parts and Products of the Human Body.” Liverpool Law Review 30 (2009): 35–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Quigley, Muireann. “Property: The Future of Human Tissue?” Medical Law Review 17, no. 3 (2009): 457–466.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Quinn, James. “Byrne, Charles.” In Dictionary of Irish Biography, edited by McGuire, James and Quinn, James. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009. http://dib.cambridge.org/viewReadPage.do?articleId=a1320 (accessed 24 September 2012).Google Scholar
Redfern Inquiry, The. The Redfern Inquiry into Human Tissue Analysis in UK Nuclear Facilities, Vol. 1. London, UK: The Crown, 2010.Google Scholar
Richardson, Ruth. Death, Dissection and the Destitute. London: Penguin, 1987.Google Scholar
Taylor, Tom. Leicester Square. London: Bickers and Son, 1874.Google Scholar
Walker, Phillip L. “Bioarchaeological Ethics: A Historical Perspective on the Value of Human Remains.” In Biological Anthropology of the Human Skeleton, edited by Katzenberg, M. Anne and Saunders, Shelley R, 2nd ed., 3–40. New York: Wiley, 2008.Google Scholar
Wood, Edward J.Giants and Dwarfs. London: Richard Bentley, 1868.Google Scholar
Woodhead, Charlotte C. “A Debate Which Crosses All Borders—The Repatriation of Human Remains: More than just a Legal Question.” Art Antiquity and Law 7, no. 4 (2002): 317–347.Google Scholar