Lynch family genealogy
Arms: Sa. three lynxes pass. guard. ar. Crest: On a ducal coronet or, a lynx, as in the arms. [1]
THE O'Lynch family derives its origin from Aongus, the second son of Carthan Fionn Oge Mór, who is No. 93 on the "O'Brien Kings of Thomond" pedigree.
They were lords of Owny-Tir, a territory on the border of the county of Tipperary, and they are mentioned as follows by O'Heerin:—
"The O'Lynches, estated chiefs,
Inhabit the wood in front of the foreigners,"
The settlement of the Galls or Foreigners, here alluded to, is the City of Limerick, which as early as the ninth century became the principal maritime station of the Danes; and the estate of the Lynches was, in all probability, the country lying around Castleconnell, in the barony of Owny and Ara, with a portion of the lands comprised in the county of the City of Limerick.
| In | A.D. 1061. | Malcolm O'Lynch, priest of Clonmacnoise, died. |
| A.D. 1080. | Eochy O'Lynch, lord of Owny-Tir, died. | |
| A.D. 1109. | Flaherty O'Lynch, successor of St. Kieran of Clonmacnoise, died. | |
| A.D. 1151. | The grandson of Eochy, lord of Owny Tir, died. | |
| A.D. 1159. | Maolmuire O'Lynch, Bishop of Lismore, died. | |
| A.D. 1325. | Thomas O'Lynch, Archdeacon of Cashel, died. | |
| A.D. 1540. | John Lynch, the last prior of the Franciscan Friary of Waterford, was forced to surrender, to the Inquisitors of Henry VIII., this house with its appurtenances, which were then granted to Patrick Walsh of Waterford, at the annual rent of £157 13s. 4d., Irish money. |
Notes
[1] Lynch: John Lynch, D.D., Archdeacon of Tuam, author of Cambrensis Eversus and other works, was born in Galway circa 1600, of a family which claimed descent from Hugh de Lacy. His father, Alexander Lynch, was at the period of his son's birth, one of the few schoolmasters left in Connaught. John Lynch was ordained priest in France about 1622. On his return to Ireland he, like his father, taught school in Galway, and acquired a wide reputation for classical learning. Essentially belonging to the Anglo-Irish party, he could not endorse any policy irreconcilable with loyalty to the King of England. On the surrender of Galway in 1652 he fled to France. Besides minor works, he was the author of Cambrensis Eversus, published in 1662, under the name of "Gratianus Lucius." It was dedicated to King Charles II. That great work written in Latin, like all his other books, was an eloquent defence of Ireland from the strictures of Giraldus Cambrensis. About the same period appeared his Alithonologia, which, as a history of the Anglo-Irish race, especially of their anomalous position under Queen Elizabeth, has no rival. In 1669, he published a life of his uncle, Francis Kirwan, Bishop of Killala, edited with a translation and notes by the Rev. C. P. Meehan, in 1848—WEBB.