Early and Private Life
John Mary Lynch was born on 15 August 1917, just yards from the famous Shandon bells and St. Anne's in Cork City. The youngest of five boys, with two girls born after him, Jack, as he was known, was generally regarded as the "wild boy" of the family. He was educated at St. Vincent's Convent on Peacock Lane, and later at the famous "North Mon", the North Monastery Christian Brothers School. When Lynch was just thirteen years old his mother died suddenly. Lynch, who had been particularly close to his mother, was deeply affected by her death. His aunt, who herself had a family of six, stepped in to look after the family in this time of great upheaval for them. Lynch sat his Leaving Certificate in 1936, after which he moved to Dublin and worked with the Dublin District Milk Board, before returning to Cork to take up a position in the Circuit Court Office.
Lynch began working at the Cork Circuit Court as a clerk while still only nineteen years old. His work in the court ignited his interest in law and in 1941 he began a night course at University College Cork studying law. After two years in UCC he moved to Dublin to complete his studies at King's Inns. While continuing his studies he started work with the Department of Justice. In 1945 Lynch was called to the Bar and had to decide whether to remain in his Civil Service job or practice as a barrister. Lynch made the decision (literally on the toss of a coin) to move back to Cork and began a private practice on the Cork Circuit.
It was in 1943, while on holidays in Glengariff, West Cork, that Lynch met his future wife, Máirín O'Connor, the daughter of a Dublin judge. Lynch was to be her first and only boyfriend, and the couple were married three years later on 10 August 1946. Although she was apprehensive about her husband's decision to become active in politics, to become a Minister and even to become Taoiseach, she stood by him through it all and helped him make the tough decisions that would affect Lynch's life and her own. One story exists where Lynch, in spite of tremendous pressure from Seán Lemass and the entire Fianna Fáil party to stand for the leadership, only accepted the nomination after Máirín had agreed. The fact that the couple didn't have any children allowed Lynch to embark on a political career, without having to worry about his commitment to the family. However, he remained totally devoted to Máirín throughout his, and she became just as easily recognisable as her husband.
Read more about this topic: Jack Lynch
Famous quotes containing the words early, private and/or life:
“Make-believe is the avenue to much of the young child’s early understanding. He sorts out impressions and tries out ideas that are foundational to his later realistic comprehension. This private world sometimes is a quiet, solitary
world. More often it is a noisy, busy, crowded place where language grows, and social skills develop, and where perseverance and attention-span expand.”
—James L. Hymes, Jr. (20th century)
“It was evident that, both on account of the feudal system and the aristocratic government, a private man was not worth so much in Canada as in the United States; and, if your wealth in any measure consists in manliness, in originality and independence, you had better stay here. How could a peaceable, freethinking man live neighbor to the Forty-ninth Regiment? A New-Englander would naturally be a bad citizen, probably a rebel, there,—certainly if he were already a rebel at home.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Young men of the fairest promise, who begin life upon our shores, inflated by the mountain winds, shined upon by all the stars of God, find the earth below not in unison with these,—but are hindered from action by the disgust which the principles on which business is managed inspire, and turn drudges, or die of disgust,—some of them suicides.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)