"They were known as burial artists people who had themselves buried alive in macabre feats of endurance and Mick Meaney resolved to be the best there ever was. It was 1968 and the Irish labourer had barely a pound to his name but he believed that if he stayed underground in a coffin longer than anyone else the world would remember his name."
"My father was a proud Tipperary man, his daughter Mary Meaney says in the documentary. He was another Irishman, they are now called the forgotten Irish, they were over there working with a pick and shovel and sending the money back to their families. Times were poor back then. Meaney, strong and powerfully built, had wanted to become a champion boxer but injury ended that dream and he ended up digging tunnels in London."
Mick Meaney, a poor Irish labourer, staged a public burial stunt in Kilburn in 1968 to attempt a 61-day world-record endurance feat. A foam-lined coffin with an air pipe was paraded through the emigrant community and lowered into a pit while wellwishers and TV crews watched. Meaney had once hoped to be a boxer but worked digging tunnels in London after an injury. A prior accident that briefly trapped him beneath rubble inspired the record bid. Family recall his Tipperary pride and the broader hardship of forgotten Irish emigrants sending money home.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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