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DOCUMENTARY ON ONE: Mick Meaney – Buried Alive

Michael Meaney 61st Day 11 Image Name: Michael Meaney 61st Day 11 Description: Michael Meaney

‘Mick Meaney – Buried Alive’

(Repeat – First broadcast 18 December 2015)

His ambitious stunt was a subject of debate in the House of Commons. Diana Dors, the Marilyn Monroe of British entertainment, jostled to have her picture taken with him and boxing icon Joe Louis was so taken by his feat, he reached out across the Atlantic to make contact.

To the watching world in 1968, Mick Meaney was the ordinary Irish labourer with the extraordinary dream of breaking the world record for time spent buried alive underground. His bizarre attempt brought international attention, began with a Last Supper and energized emigrant Kilburn.

The challenge was stoked and pushed along by charismatic Kerry publican turned promoter Butty Sugrue, who later brought Muhammad Ali to Ireland. The title stood at 45 days.

To beat it and make the Guinness Book of Records, Meaney was matched against its holder – American adventurer Digger O’Dell – moral outrage and a terrifying battle of claustrophobic proportions.

Two men, buried the same day in different continents! The story was fixed upon by Fleet Street’s media who drove thousands to Meaney’s graveside with a diet of daily headlines.

There, in Keane’s Yard, Mick bedded down dark and deep in the world of the dead.

But who was the man behind the challenge and where did he get his strength? What happened during his attempt that brought the world’s media to an Irish enclave in North London; that sent the BBC scrambling for a satellite link-up. And what did the world see when the lid of the coffin came off?

‘Mick Meaney – Buried Alive’ is the surreal story of a man who found stardom beneath six feet of soil, but for how long and at what cost?