Author: LYNCH, Patrick
Biography:
LYNCH, Patrick (1757?-1818: Ó Casaide)
He is not to be confused with a man of the same name who edited the first and only volume of a Gaelic magazine, Bolg an tSolair (1795), which includes verse by Charlotte Brooke (q.v.). The most complete account of Lynch’s life and writings is found in two essays by Séamus Ó Casaide, published in 1912. He was born in Quin, County Clare, Ireland, on 17 Mar. in either 1754 or 1757. His parents' names are not known and no birth or baptismal records have been located. A Catholic, he attended a hedge school run by Donough an Charrain who, like other hedge school masters, emphasised the classics and Irish. Lynch then worked on the family farm for some years before receiving further education at a school in Cashel, County Tipperary, run by the Rev. Patrick Hare. He assisted at the school 1774-78 before becoming a private tutor and, subsequently, a teacher in Carrick on Suir, County Tipperary. There he was taken to the Ecclesiastical Court on charges of unlawfully teaching (as a Catholic) but the case was dismissed by a sympathetic bishop. In Carrick he met and married Mary (Mulhall?); they had at least one son, William. In Carrick Lynch published his first books, Paddy’s Portable Chronoscope (1792), The Pentaglot Preceptor (1796), and A Plain, Easy and Comprehensive Grammar, of the English Tongue (1805; listed in this database). In about 1808 he moved to Dublin where he conducted the Classical and Mercantile School at 39 Lower Ormond Quay. He joined the newly established Gaelic Society of Dublin, and eventually became the secretary. He died on 10 May 1818; an obituary—which gives his age at death as 64—describes him as “the best Critical Irish Scholar of the age.” Lynch’s other works include A Treatise on Practical Surveying (1810), The Life of Saint Patrick (1810), Life of Columkille (1814?) and An Introduction to the Knowledge of the Irish Language (1815). (Séamus Ó Casaide, “Patrick Lynch, Secretary to the Gaelic Society of Dublin” and “List of Works Projected or Published by Patrick Lynch,” Journal of the Waterford and South-East of Ireland Archaeological Society 15 [1912], 47-61 and 107-36; DIB 30 June 2025) SR