Byrne is the English author Anthony Burgess's last novel, published posthumously in 1995. Composed mostly in the same ottava rima stanzas that Byron used for his Don Juan, the story follows the fortunes of Michael Byrne, an Irishman with some Spanish ancestors who settled in Ireland after a war between England's Royal Navy and the Spanish Armada in the 16th century. — Part One, stanza 2 A painter and composer whose career is never as spectacular as his ambitions, and a determined womanizer who fathers children across the globe, Byrne becomes embroiled with the Nazi regime in 1930s Germany.