When he died in the 1780's, it's a fair bet that he certainly had towered over his fellow Irishmen during his short span on earth.
Looking at Irish mythology, however, he wasn't all that odd. There are all sorts of tales about giants, and scientists may have discovered the grain of truth behind the folk tales.
Dr. Marta Korbonits was studying the DNA of five Northern Ireland families who are genetically predisposed to gigantism. In their case, they were passing along a gene that affected the pituitary gland, where growth hormone is regulated.
Is it any surprise that the families are from the north of Ireland, where the folk tales of giants like Fionn mac Cumhaill strode upon the ground? Perhaps it is not so surprising to learn that a genetic connection exists between Mr. Byrne and the doctor's gigantism patients.
While the good doctor is interested in her research for scientific reasons, her discovery also provides an explanation for what became folk tales that took on a larger life over time.
A creative people might look at the bizarre rock formations of the Giant's Causeway and combine that with fanciful ponderings about the family up in Tyrone that was abnormally tall.
Before the Kindle, television or literacy, folks sat around the fire and made up stories. Like good writers in modern times, they constructed those tales from things they knew, and it has now become apparent that giants, or extremely tall people, actually existed.
The gene mutation that is causing gigantism in the five families related to Mr. Byrne may have arisen about 1500 years ago. Even then, a ripple in the norm was fodder for the imagination. Some things don't seem to have changed at all over the centuries.
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