Mick Meaney made global headlines when he beat world record in 1968, but returned to Ireland penniless
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.
On 21 February that year wellwishers and TV crews followed his coffin, 6ft 3in long, 2ft 6in wide and lined with foam, in procession through the streets of Kilburn, the heart of Ireland’s emigrant community in London, and watched as Meaney was lowered into a pit in a builder’s yard.
Soil entombed the coffin, save for a pipe for air and through which food and liquid could be lowered. Meaney’s target, to beat the world record and claim fame and fortune, was 61 days.
