The Kerryman (South Kerry Edition)
Fionán Lynch: From Dromid to the Dáil
LAST week, in view of the recent centenary celebrations of the first Dáil, I referred to the significance of Valentia’s JJ O’Kelly (Sceilg). Fionán Lynch of Kilmakerin is also very significant to that time.
Fionán Lynch was born on March 17, 1889, in Kilmakerrin, Dromid.
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.
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.
He was born in 1849. 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 in Spunkane, east of the road between Cahersiveen and Waterville, nearer to Waterville.
She was born in 1853 and went to Dublin to train as a teacher.
He grew up bilingually, speaking mostly in Irish at home but in English at school.
He was initially educated in Kilmakerrin but subsequently went to St Brendan’s College in Killarney and then, at the age of 14 in about September 1903, to the Holy Ghost Fathers School in 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. He returned to Ireland in 1909, where he started training as a teacher in Saint Patrick’s Teacher Training College in Drumcondra, 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, within the area of his activity in 1916.
In 1912 Fionán and a good friend, Gearóid O’Sullivan, joined the Gaelic League, an organisation promoting the Irish language. They joined the Irish volunteers on its foundation in November 1913.
Fionán was also recuited by Sean McDermott into the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), an oath-bound secret organisation.
Having become a Captain, he oversaw training in military discipline; handling of arms; and overall preparation to defend Home Rule for Ireland.
During the course of the Easter Rising, Fionán, who operated in the Four Courts area, was stationed nearby in North King Street. He was situated about a quarter of a mile from St Michan’s School, where he had been teaching.
Following the surrender, he awaited Court Marshall in Kilmainham Jail while day by day hearing the execution of his comrades.
These included his Commandant, Ned Daly, and special friends, Sean McDermott and Tom Clarke. He was subsequently sentenced to death, but it was commuted to ten years’ penal servitude. He was then transferred to Portland Prison on the Isle of Wight and was finally moved to Frongoch Camp in Wales, where he met Michael Collins.
After the end of WWI, elections were held in the UK and Ireland, with almost all of the Irish seats going to Sinn Féin candidates.
Fionán was a member of the Secretariat of the Irish delegation who negotiated he Treaty in London.
The treaty was approved by Dáil Éireann and a provisional government was set up to implement it. Fionán was its Minister for Education.
In December 1922, Dail Éireann assumed full government, with Fionán being Minister for fisheries and, later, lands and fisheries.
He was out of government in 1932 when Eamon De Valera’s Fianna Fáil came to power.
He remained a Cumann Na nGaedheal/Fine Gael TD until 1944 for the Kerry and South Kerry constituencies.
He was appointed a Circuit Court judge for Donegal and Sligo in 1944.
Fionan Lynch retired due to health reasons in 1959 and died suddenly in June, 1966.