Patricia Lynch was an Irish children's writer and a journalist. She was the author of some 48 novels and 200 short stories. She is best known for blending Irish rural life and fantasy fiction as in The Turf-Cutter's Donkey which was illustrated by Jack B. Yeats.
Biography
Patricia Nora Lynch was born in Cork, Ireland to Thomas, a stockbroker and journalist, and Nora Lynch, both of Cork. She had one brother, Henry Patrick and two sisters, Laura and Winifred. As a result of her father's death she received her education at schools in Ireland, England, Scotland and Belgium. She became a journalist and in 1916 was sent to Dublin by Sylvia Pankhurst to report on the Easter Rising for The Workers' Dreadnought. Although a committed Irish nationalist, she retained a London accent to the end of her life. She made and remained friends with several notable nationalists including Maud Gonne and Constance Markievicz. She was an activist in achieving votes for women. In 1948 Irish Playwright Teresa Deevy published an essay on Patricia Lynch entitled 'A Study'. Lynch married socialist historian R. M. Fox in Dublin on 31 October 1922 and they settled in Glasnevin. She died in Monkstown, County Dublin on 1 September 1972 and is buried in Glasnevin Cemetery with her husband. Her semi-autobiographical A Story-Teller's Childhood was published in 1947.
Journalism
Patricia Lynch worked as a freelance journalist in her late teens and early twenties. Her article "Scenes from the rebellion", written for a suffragette paper, The Workers' Dreadnought gave an eye-witness account of the events of the 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin. She was politically-active, and spoke at suffrage rallies. She was friends with Maud Gonne, Constance Markievicz, Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington, and with the Fabian writer, Edith Nesbit.
Writing
Patricia Lynch is best known for The Turf-Cutter's Donkey, first published in 1934. It was originally serialised in The Irish Press from 1931. This story concerns Seamus and Eileen, an enchanted teapot and the little grey donkey, Long Ears. The children meet a leprechaun, a golden eagle, the Salmon of Knowledge and Finn on their adventure. Some sequels followed. Another series of hers is the Brogeen series, a fantasy children's book series. Here Brogeen is the name of the main character in the book, a leprechaun who keeps running away from his home. It has been read on radio and released as a puppet theatre series on Irish TV. The Bookshop on the Quay is her best-known non-fantasy book. It tells the story of Shane from the country who learns the trade of bookselling at The Four Masters Bookshop in Dublin. The book was read on Jackanory. She is co-author of Lisheen at the Valley Farm and other stories along with Teresa Deevy and Helen Staunton where she wrote Strange People a story about a little girl called Meg and her friends. Lynch's literature, always morally simple, remains praised for its other-worldly depictions of life in the west of Ireland. Her protagonists often encounter characters from Irish folklore, and speak a Gaelicised English reminiscent of Lady Gregory's Kiltartan. Marcus Crouch in The Nesbit Tradition describes Lynch's work as "the richest and most heart-warming of family stories." He particularly mentions the fantasy The Grey Goose of Kilnevin and the "homely adventure" Fiddler's Quest. Her works had many different illustrators, including the renowned artists John Butler Yeats' and Sean Keating'.
