Acromegaly 'giant gene' bond forged between US and Northern Ireland
Brendan Holland said speaking to Colleen Snyder was confirmation of his belief that the gene had been carried overseas
The gene caused Charles Byrne, born in 1761 near Cookstown and known as the "Irish giant", to grow more than 7ft 6in tall.where one in 150 people have the genetic mutation, compared to one in 1,000 in Belfast and one in 2,000 in the rest of the UK. When she looked at her family tree she realised her ancestral home was in fact Clonoe, near Coalisland in County Tyrone, the centre of the giant gene "hotspot".Brendan Holland and Colleen Snyder meeting with a group including Prof Marta Korbonits and Prof Michael Besser
Prof Korbonits put Colleen in touch with Brendan Holland from Dungannon, County Tyrone, who is 6ft 9in and a distant relative of Charles Byrne. "And all of a sudden I was talking to someone who can understand what it was like to have a pituitary tumour that causes you to have the excess growth and have all the kinds of physical problems that I had."Colleen Snyder and her sister Cherie have been looking for the McGurk family graves at St Michael’s parish cemetery in Clonoe near Coalisland
Colleen recently made the trip to County Tyrone to meet Brendan in person and to visit the townland which the McGurks left for America more than 160 years ago.After more than a year of zoom calls on a computer, Colleen said the visit had revealed a "rich world" of giant folklore.
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