'Finian Lynch' (;
1889 –
1966) was a senior
Irish Cumann na nGaedhael and
Fine Gael politician.
Finian Lynch was born in
Caherciveen,
County Kerry in 1889. He qualified as a national school teacher in 1912 and joined the
Gaelic League the same year. He was a founder member of the
Irish Volunteers in 1913 and was sworn into the
Irish Republican Brotherhood that same year. Lynch fought in the
Easter Rising in
Dublin in 1916 and was interned in prison in
England and
Wales until the general amnesty in late 1917.
Upon his release Lynch resumed his paramilitary activities and was elected as an abstenionist
Sinn Féin Member of Parliament for
Kerry South in the
1918 Westminster Election, becoming a
Member of the 1st Dáil. He was automatically elected as an abstenionist member of the
House of Commons of Southern Ireland and a
Member of the 2nd Dáil as a Sinn Féin
Teachta Dála for
Kerry–Limerick West in the
Irish elections, 1921. He supported the
Anglo-Irish Treaty like almost all IRB members and during the Dáil Debates criticised some Anti-Treaty TDs. During the
Civil War he fought with the
Irish Free State Army and rose to the rank of Brigadier. He left the Army in 1923 to concentrate on his political career. He was elected a
Member of the 3rd Dail at the
1922 general election as a
Pro-Treaty Sinn Féin TD and at each subsequent general election as a
Cumann na nGaedhael and later
Fine Gael deputy for the constituencies of
Kerry from 1923 to 1937 and
Kerry South from 1937 until he resigned his seat shortly after the
1944 general election, on his appointment as a
judge.
Lynch served as Minister for Fisheries from 1922 to 1932. After the entry to power of Fianna Fáil he qualified as a barrister and remained a TD until his 1944 appointment as a
judge.
Political career
Source
Politics.ie Wiki