Researching John Lynch

Lynch is the most popular governor in New Hampshire history and, while in office, consistently ranked among the nation's most popular governors.

Since 2013, Lynch has served as a Senior Lecturer in the MBA program at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College.

A nine-time Pro Bowl selection, Lynch earned a Super Bowl ring with the Buccaneers in Super Bowl XXXVII. Lynch was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2021. He also spent four seasons with the Denver Broncos before retiring in 2008. After the end of his playing career, Lynch worked in the broadcasting booth as a color commentator for NFL on Fox games and remained doing so until his hiring as general manager of the 49ers in 2017.

Prior to moving to Vanuatu, he had served at the University of Papua New Guinea for 21 years, the last five as vice-chancellor. His areas of focus were the languages of Vanuatu, the history of languages of the Pacific, pidgin and creole languages, language change, dictionaries and orthography design.

He was the editor of the journal Oceanic Linguistics.

Lynch was elected to Dáil Éireann on his first attempt, at the 1951 general election, as a Fine Gael candidate for the Kerry North constituency taking his seat in the 14th Dáil.

At the 1954 general election, he lost his seat to the Clann na Poblachta candidate Johnny Connor, but was then elected to the 8th Seanad on the Industrial and Commercial Panel, where he served until 1957.

He stood again as a candidate for Dáil Éireann at the 1957 general election, but was unsuccessful. Clann na Poblachta had not put forward a candidate, and the seat was won by a Fianna Fáil candidate, Daniel Moloney. Lynch did not contest the subsequent election to the 9th Seanad, and died in June 1957.

He also represented Ireland in an early rendition of the International Rules Series. He blames his subsequent sending off for instigating an unfair reputation as being a dirty player.

He played club football for his local town, Castlederg, but was very close to pursuing a career in athletics, until his girlfriend convinced him to pursue Gaelic football.

Born in Portland, Maine, Lynch attended public schools as a child and graduated from Portland High School in 1842. He engaged in mercantile pursuits, was manager of the Portland Daily Press in 1862 and was a member of the Maine House of Representatives from 1862 to 1864. He was elected a Republican to the United States House of Representatives in 1864, serving from 1865 to 1873. There, Lynch served as chairman of the Committee on Expenditures in the Department of the Navy from 1869 to 1871 and of the Committee on Expenditures in the Department of the Treasury from 1871 to 1873. Afterward, he permanently moved to Washington, D.C. where he established the Washington Daily Union in 1877 and engaged in the manufacturing of bricks and drain pipes. Lynch died while on a visit to Portland, Maine on July 21, 1892, and was interred in Evergreen Cemetery in Portland.

Born in Young, New South Wales, Lynch was educated at St Mary's Denominational School before becoming a mining, road and railway contractor and dam sinker along with his father and brothers. In 1890, after being injured in a workplace accident, he selected land at Thuddungra, establishing and clearing the 1400-acre "Glenachrawn" property. He largely grew wheat on the property, but also experimented in cotton-growing. Lynch was a foundation councillor and deputy president for seven years of the Burrangong Shire, a member of the Young Land Board, a member of the local Pastures Protection Board and a justice of the peace. Lynch was an active member of the Australian Workers' Union and Young Political Labor League and was a prominent member of the Hibernian Society. He had initially been endorsed as the Labor candidate for the 1912 Werriwa by-election, but was forced to withdraw due to procedural issues with his nomination.

In 1914, he was elected to the Australian House of Representatives as the Labor member for Werriwa, defeating Liberal MP Alfred Conroy. Lynch was one of the Labor members who left the party in the 1916 Labor split over conscription in World War I, walking out of caucus in support of expelled Prime Minister Billy Hughes in November and being formally expelled from the party himself in December. Lynch joined the new Nationalist Party along with the other MPs involved in the split and won re-election as a Nationalist in 1917, but was defeated in 1919 by Labor's Bert Lazzarini.

After his political defeat, Lynch returned to farming at "Glenachrawn" and was a prolific "writer to the press of letters and articles on rural matters". After three years of failing health, he died at the Sacred Heart Hospital in Young in 1941.

John was very active in the early days of the Cork Fenian movement. He organised nationalist celebrations on St. Patrick's night 1862 at the Athenaeum club, Cork. Lynch worked as an accountant.

The marriage of the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII) and Alexandra of Denmark on 10 March 1863 was an occasion for loyalist celebrations in Cork. Houses and shops had their windows illuminated. This increased nationalistic unrest, with windows being smashed and the mayor being roughly handled. Several rioters were prosecuted, including Lynch and James Mountaine. Both were acquitted due to lack of evidence.

He was again arrested in Sept 1865, as part of the general purge of Fenian leaders, based on information provided by John Warner, an ex-military pensioner. The trial of John Lynch and co-defendant Brian Dillon starting on 18 December 1865 with Isaac Butt as their legal counsel. The charges were "in one indictment with having conspired to depose the Queen, &c., and with illegally drilling and being drilled in furtherance of that design". Lynch was accused of being a captain (denoted as "B") in the Irish Republican Brotherhood. Both were found guilty, based primarily on the testimony of informants although John Warner's account was very weak and unsatisfactory under cross examination. At this time, John Lynch was seriously ill from tuberculosis. At his sentencing, John disputed the testimony of John Warner, saying he had never learned to use a rifle and said "If, having served my country honestly and sincerely be treason, I am not ashamed of it. I am now prepared to receive any punishment British law can inflict on me." Both defendants were sentenced to 10 years' penal servitude.

In January 1866, he was transferred from Mountjoy Prison, Dublin to Pentonville Prison, London where the conditions were very harsh. Because of his condition, he was transferred to Woking Prison hospital, Surrey, where he died on 2 June 1866 recordedly aged 34. He is commemorated on the National Memorial in the city of Cork and at Brookwood Cemetery, UK where he is buried.

He was born near Parkes to miner William Sullivan Lynch and Mary Seymour. He attended local public schools and became a schoolteacher, working at Parkes from 1895 to 1897 and at various country schools thereafter. In 1907 he was elected to the New South Wales Legislative Assembly as the Labor member for Ashburnham. He served until his defeat in 1913. Subsequently he became a commercial agent and hotel manager. On 3 June 1922 he married Florence Staub. Lynch died at St Leonards in 1944.

Lynch arrived in Australia as a convict, assigned to a farm in the Berrima district. He murdered a fellow assigned convict in 1836 but was acquitted of the charge. After a period in a convict gang he absconded, and by July 1841 he had made his way back to the Berrima district. On two separate occasions Lynch murdered carriers along the road between Berrima and Camden, stealing their drays and teams. In the latter half of 1841 Lynch murdered the farmer John Mulligan and his family, and took possession of their farm in the Berrima district using the name John Dunleavy. He was convicted in March 1842 of the murder of Kearns Landregan, sentenced to death and executed by hanging in April 1842.