Michael Byrne (sailor)

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Michael Byrne was born in Kilkenny, Ireland in 1761. He was signed as an able seaman by Captain Bligh on the Bounty primarily to play the fiddle. Bligh wrote I had great difficulty before I left England to get a man to play the violin and I preferred at last to take one two-thirds blind than come without one and described him as being 5 feet 6 inches high. Fair complexion and is almost blind. Plays the fiddle. Has the mark of an issue in the back of his neck.

He was a loyalist who gave himself up voluntarily when the Pandora arrived and subsequently survived the wreck of the Pandora. He was acquitted at court-martial and it is not known what subsequently became of him.