THE venerable Chambers Book of Daysrecords that, on September 8th, 1804, there died near Bristol a man named Patrick Cotter O'Brien, writes Frank McNally.
Originally from Cork, he had been born 40-odd years earlier as plain Patrick Cotter. But his unusual calling required a more regal surname; and the "O'Brien" was added some time after he went to England to pursue a successful career as a giant.
According to his promotional material, he stood 8 feet 7 inches tall. This appears to have been an exaggeration, however, in keeping with another frequently made claim: that he owed his size to being a direct descendent of Brian Boru (hence the stage name).
His memorial in a Bristol church is more restrained. "Here lie the remains of Mr Patrick Cotter O'Brien, a native of Kinsale, in the kingdom of Ireland," it says. "He was a man of gigantic stature, exceeding eight feet three inches in height, and proportionately large." At any rate, he was enough of a spectacle to thrive for a time in a country where there was an established market for the display of outsized Irishmen. Indeed, Cotter modelled himself on an earlier emigrant, Charles Byrne, who reportedly drank himself to death in 1783, aged only 22.
Byrne was said to stand 8 feet 4 inches at the time of his demise, and still growing. This too was probably exaggerated. But during his short career in London, he had certainly been a sensation, with the Haymarket Theatre naming a summer pantomime in his honour: "Harlequin Teague, or The Giant's Causeway." Giants seem to have been the 18th-century equivalent of soccer players, albeit with even shorter careers at the top. The Book of Days(published in 1869) says that at the age of 18, Cotter was "bought" from his father by an impresario, in a deal worth £50 a year for three years.
Unfortunately for the buyer, the purchase felt he had been undervalued. On arriving in Bristol, he refused to be exhibited without personal remuneration, on top of the food, clothes, and lodging stipulated in the contract. His "owner" promptly had him thrown into a debtor's prison, to soften his cough. Whereupon a benevolent third party intervened to have the contract nullified. Thereafter Cotter went freelance, exhibiting himself "with such success that he earned £30 in three days".
A hand-bill from the period illustrates the sales pitch: "Just arrived in Town, and to be seen in a commodious room, at No. 11 Haymarket . . .the celebrated Irish Giant, Mr O'Brien . . . indisputably the tallest man ever shewn; he is a lineal descendant of the old puissant King Brien Boreau, and has in person and appearance all the similitude of that great and grand potentate. It is remarkable of this family, that, however various the revolutions in point of fortune and affiance, the lineal descendants thereof have been favoured by Providence with the original size and stature which have been so peculiar to their family. The gentleman alluded to measures near nine feet high. Admittance, one shilling."
Nearly a century later, Chambers' book put the giant's regal demeanour into perspective for Victorian readers: "He seems to have had less imbecility of mind than the generality of overgrown persons, but all the weakness of body by which they are characterised. He walked with difficulty, and felt considerable pain when rising up or sitting down." The "revolutions of fortune and affiance" that had affected Brian Boru's descendents was further explored in Hilary Mantel's 1998 historical novel The Giant O'Brien, (which is in fact based on the story of the earlier man, Byrne).
It portrays the hero as both story-teller and giant. But as the novel opens, amid the wretched poverty of an 18th-century Ireland ravaged by eviction and land clearance, O'Brien has realised that his life as a story-teller is finished and that he must now rely on Plan B. With a bedraggled retinue of friends, he signs with a local agent and heads for London where, he has heard, a man "can make a living from being tall".
There he meets a Scotsman called Hunter, based on an historical character of the same name who achieved fame in the late 1700s as a surgeon, scientist, and collector. The novel's version of Hunter yearns to acquire the giant, but not as a going concern. Like an asset stripper buying a doomed factory, it is only the body parts he wants.
So he waits first for Byrne's box-office value to wane; and then for another burst of unsustainable growth in the giant's already overstretched frame to deliver him the prize.
As they neared death, the real-life Byrne and Cotter were both preoccupied with the fear of body-snatchers getting hold of their remains for sale to anatomists. In his final moments, Byrne is said to have asked for burial at sea to thwart the grisly trade, while Cotter gave detailed directions for his grave to be secured with brickwork and iron bars.
The latter appears to have been successful. His bones remained undisturbed for a century before being re-interred in a crypt in Bristol, where they still rest. But Byrne was not so lucky. His body was duly acquired by the real-life Hunter, for a reputed fee of several hundred pounds; and the skeleton is displayed to this day at the Hunterian Museum, named after the collector, in the Royal College of Surgeons, London.
• fmcnally@irish-times.ie