Fionán Lynch

Fionán Lynch ( ga, Fionán Ó Loingsigh; 17 March 1889 – 3 June 1966) was an Irish revolutionary, barrister, politician and judge of the Circuit Court from 1944 to 1959, Leas-Cheann Comhairle of Dáil Éireann from 1938 to 1939, Minister for Lands and Fisheries from 1928 to 1932, Minister for Fisheries from 1922 to 1928, Minister without portfolio from August 1922 to December 1922 and Minister for Education from April 1922 to August 1922. He served as a Teachta Dála (TD) from 1918 to 1944.

Early life

Lynch was born on 17 March 1889 in Cahersiveen, County Kerry. He was the seventh of eleven children to his parents Finian Lynch and Ellie McCarthy, the master and mistress of the new national school in the townland of Kilmakerrin, near Cahersiveen, in County Kerry.

His father, Finian Lynch, was the younger son of Partalan Lynch, a stonemason, farmer and hedge school teacher, who had purchased some land from the O’Connell estate at Kenneigh in Kerry, between Cahersiveen and Waterville on the Ballinskelligs side of the road and north of the river Inny. His elder brother became a stonemason but Finian trained as a teacher in Dublin. His mother, Ellie McCarthy was the daughter of the teachers in the national school at Spunkane, near Waterville. She was born in 1853 and went to Dublin to train as a teacher.

Education

He grew up bilingual, speaking mostly in Irish at home, but in English at school. He was initially educated in the parent's school in Kilmakerrin but subsequently went to St Brendan's College, Killarney and then, at the age of 14 in about September 1903, to the Holy Ghost Fathers School at Rockwell College, County Tipperary. In 1907, he finished for one year with the Holy Ghost Fathers in Blackrock College, Dublin. He had planned to study medicine, but in 1907, when he was 18 years old his father died and he did not have the money to pursue this career path.

Instead, when he was 18, he went to Swansea in Wales and taught in a parish school, not as a trained teacher, but as a well-educated young man, before returning to Ireland in 1909, where he started training as a teacher in St Patrick's College, Dublin. He graduated in 1911 as a primary school teacher and took up a teaching position in Dublin in April 1912, in St. Michan's School, Halston Street near North King Street, Dublin, by chance, within the area of his activity in 1916.

Munster Hotel

While in training he met and became a lifelong friend of Gearóid O'Sullivan, a fellow student from Skibbereen, County Cork. Both having got jobs in Dublin, they arranged to stay at the Munster Hotel (also known as "Grianan na nGaedheal" or "Aras na nGael"), 44 Mountjoy Street, Dublin, the hotel and lodgings run by his aunt Miss Myra McCarthy.

This address would later become well known because Michael Collins, a first cousin of Gearóid O'Sullivan, stayed there after his release from Frongoch internment camp in December 1916 sharing a room with Lynch, with it remaining his base until 1922. Even after Collins went on the run he would still call in for breakfast and to collect his laundry. According to Lynch it was probably the most raided house in Dublin during 1920. During 1918, the British spy Timothy Quinlisk stayed.

Gaelic League

While in Swansea, and keen on fostering the Irish language both written and spoken, Lynch had formed a branch of the Gaelic League. When he returned to Dublin in 1912 Lynch, Gearóid O'Sullivan and his friend Diarmuid O'Hegarty joined the very active and influential Keating Branch of the Gaelic League, where IRB influence was strong. The Chairman of the branch was Cathal Brugha and Piaras Béaslaí was a member, with Seán Mac Diarmada a frequent visitor. Lynch, O’Sullivan and Ó Hegarty were soon brought onto the committee of the branch and undertook teaching of both adults and children.

Lynch proceeded to the Royal University of Ireland and University College Dublin, where he got a BA in Celtic studies in 1913 and a Higher Diploma in Education in 1914. He had a story about his BA in Celtic studies whereby the university was short of an examiner fluent in the Irish language and sought the help, probably of the Gaelic league. He was registered as a student as Finian Lynch, the anglicised version of his name, and the recommendation from the Gaelic league for a suitable examiner was one Fionán Ó Loingsigh.

Na hAisteoirí

Piaras Béaslaí established a dramatic society which was called ''Na hAisteoirí'' (The Actors) and all three joined. They undertook plays around the country at social events such as the Oireachtas. Lynch translated Molière's “Le Maladie Imaginaire” into the Irish language for the purpose.

During 1914 to 1915, they produced plays in Irish at intervals in Dublin and in the summer of 1914 they did a tour of Cork and Kerry producing plays in different towns each night and finishing off with two or three nights at the Oireachtas in Killarney. In July 1914, they were producing Irish plays at the Oireachtas in Drogheda and Seán Mac Diarmada insisted that they go ahead even though it clashed with the Howth gun running.

Irish Volunteers and the Irish Republican Brotherhood

On 25 November 1913, Lynch, together with Gearóid O'Sullivan and Diarmuid O'Hegarty attended the meeting at the Rotunda Rink for the founding of the Irish Volunteers and they joined on that first night. Drilling started within a couple of weeks, at the Foresters Hall on Parnell Square (Russell Square at the time) and instructors were chosen and Lynch was chosen to train a squad. In summer 1914, there was the first election of volunteer officers and Lynch was elected 2nd lieutenant of F Company, which would be placed in 1st Battalion.

With the formation of the battalion the captain of F Company, Piaras Béaslaí, was promoted to second in command of the battalion and, as Sean (Jack) Shouldice who was the first lieutenant couldn't accept the captaincy, Lynch was promoted to captain of F Company. His friend from the Gaelic League Diarmuid Ó Hegarty was made second lieutenant.

Soon after this he was asked by his close friend Seán Mac Diarmada, along with Con Collins, to join the