Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lynch, Richard

by Thompson Cooper

LYNCH, RICHARD, D.D. (1611–1676), jesuit, was born in Galway in 1611 of a distinguished family (pedigree in Miscellany of the Irish Archæological Society, vol. i.) He was educated in the Irish College of Compostella, where he entered the Society of Jesus in 1630. In 1634 he removed to the Irish College at Seville, of which he was appointed rector in 1637. He was created D.D., and for more than a quarter of a century was the admiration of the universities of Valladolid and Salamanca, being ‘so subtle, brilliant, and eloquent in the chair of theology, that he was constantly called on by the acclamation of his hearers to prolong his lectures’ (Hogan, Cat. of the Irish Province, S.J., p. 38). He died at Salamanca in 1676.

He was the author of:

1. ‘Universa Philosophia Scholastica,’ 3 vols., Lyons, 1654, fol.
2. ‘Sermones varios,’ Salamanca, 1670; ‘De Deo ultimo fine,’ 2 vols., Salamanca, 1671.
3. ‘Sermon Panegyrico a la Canonizacion de Francisco de Borja, con circunstancias de la reedificacion de el Colegio de la Compañia de Jesus, de Medina del Campo, despues de su quema, y Jubileo de quarenta horas,’ Salamanca, 1674, 4to.
4. Several manuscript works on theology preserved in the library at Salamanca.

[Catholic Miscellany, 1828, ix. 38; De Backer's Bibl. de la Compagnie de Jésus, ii. 917; Foley's Records, vii. 469; Oliver's Jesuit Collections, p. 256; Southwell's Bibl. Soc. Jesu. p. 719; Ware's Writers (Harris), p. 166.]

T. C.