Lynch was a successful civil servant, academic and renowned teacher, building up a devoted following of disciples who built the Irish economy into the Celtic tiger. They were a major force behind country's economic growth from the 1960s to the early 2000s. A Professor of Political Economy at University College Dublin until 1980, he was a civil servant for over a decade, served as chairman of Aer Lingus and Aer Rianta and was deputy chairman of AIB Group.He enjoyed collecting books and he was interested in history in general and Irish history in particular and supported many national institutions to become major repositories of Celtic Studies in Europe. He helped his students showing promise by various means.

Early life

Born in South Dublin in 1917, Patrick Lynch was the son of Daniel Lynch, a Grocer and Publican in Kevin Street, and Brigid Kennedy. Daniel bought his business from J. Davin in 1905 before selling it onto Chris Casey in 1936 and it was there that Lynch began to learn about the market economy behind the counter of his father's business. It was on the corner of Patrick Street and New Street in Dublin. Daniel Lynch’s family roots were in Tipperary where his father Patrick was a gentleman farmer. Brigid Kennedy’s family roots were in Rathmines, Dublin where her father John was a gentleman. They were married on 14 June 1916 in the Roman Catholic Church in Rathmines just two months after the 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin. Patrick or Paddy as he was called by their family was their eldest child.

Lynch's first marriage was to Mary Crotty of Leeson Park in Ballsbridge — a fellow academic - whom he married in 1965. She was described by friends as warm and enthusiastic and they lived in Marlborough Road in Dublin 4. She died in 1982. In 1991 he married Mary Moloney. They lived in Wellington Road in Dublin 4 until his death in 2001.

Education

Lynch enjoyed a privileged education at Catholic University School, CUS, a feeder school for University College Dublin, UCD (successor to the Catholic University of Ireland), where he showed early talent in a wide range of subjects; particularly classics, mathematics, and history. His abilities were remarkable for their complete variety. Interestingly, he expressed the view later to his students that it would not be possible for an economist to win the Nobel Prize in economics in the future without a solid grasp of mathematics as this art migrated into a science requiring a strong analytical rigour. He entered UCD in 1935 to study humanities, where he achieved outstanding academic success. His interest in politics led him towards the field of economics, which he studied later at Peterhouse, Cambridge and he was appointed a Fellow Commoner of this Cambridge College. He was a near contemporary of the historian Kevin Nowlan who was finishing his PhD at Peterhouse at this time and a great friend of Desmond Williams. During this time, he was inclined to accept the ideas of Alfred Marshall and John Maynard Keynes. Lynch is therefore an example of the type of visionary mindset and intellect that is produced from excellent Irish and English school and university establishments, always open to new ideas.

Civil Service

He had spent his earlier years in the Civil Service, which he joined in 1941, employed in a range of areas at senior level. He started in the Department of Finance as a civil servant and worked in this department until 1948. He rose rapidly to the important position of Assistant Secretary to the Government in 1950. John A Costello had asked for someone with a solid grasp of economics to become private secretary to the Taoiseach. Along with Alexis Fitzgerald, he helped persuade Costello to adopt a Keynesian approach to economic policy. Two years later he was appointed Assistant Secretary to the inter-party government led by Costello and he continued in this post when Fianna Fáil resumed power in 1951. He had also become chairman of the inter-departmental Foreign Trade Committee.

He created public service values through staunchness, personal service and dedication over a wide range of interests by motivating idealism and commitment in others. This experience helped to develop his qualities of political judgment that made his economic advice so relevant within the constraints of public policy. His advice was always supported with the vision of a socially progressive and economically resurgent Ireland in the second half of the 20th century. He contributed much to the thinking behind the Whitaker plan for economic development, which helped to create the economic growth that started in the 1960s. He developed the Whitaker-Lynch rule that encouraged borrowing in fiscal planning, whereby government budget deficits were incurred to fund capital investment projects.

Even after he moved from the Civil Service in Merrion Street to University College Dublin (UCD) in Earlsfort Terrace, his advice was sought continually at the highest levels of policy making. He was by then recognised as an outstanding scientist, scholar and visionary; a public servant and statesman of his generation; a person who contributed so much to society, its public good, and to the economic and social well-being of Ireland. The pull of the academic life remained strong, he had never lost contact with his University, and when the new post of lecturer in economics was created in UCD in 1952, he left his Civil Service career to take on the job in his old alma mater, a move seen as unusual at the time.

Academic career

UCD never lost its hold on him and he gave up a promising career in the Civil Service to return there as a lecturer. In 1952, he joined the academic staff and rose to the most senior levels, where he showed his considerable talent at applying economic theory to practical problems, after more than a decade in the civil service. Prof. George O'Brien was responsible for bringing him to UCD, where he became one of three appointees to statutory lectureships in economics. He was an inspiring lecturer, who played a key role in introducing Keynesian economics into Irish policy-making.

To his students he was a friend and mentor. There are many graduates today who owe their career development to his good advicee providing guidance to all that came to his door without fail. One former student named Lynch as the cleverest person he had ever known, commenting, "Every time I disagreed with Lynch, I felt that I would lose, and I never emerged without feeling enriched by his arguments." Another student who went on to do his PhD in economics at University of California, Berkeley before becoming a Professor at Cornell University recalls visiting him about his book "LANDLORDS, TENANTS, FAMINE". On pages 288-291, he is critical of Lynch & Vaizey (on non-monetisation). "Now, I think that it was early in 2000s when he left a copy of the entire all-but-final draft with Paddy for his comments. He feared that Paddy might be upset re pp. 288-291, but not so: Paddy invited him to Wellington Rd where Paddy already had prepared detailed typed comments and suggestions, some of them very perceptive. More important, Paddy was (as an author) unusually gracious rather than defensive, and Paddy fully agreed that the criticisms about monetary/nonmonetary Ireland just before the famine were entirely appropriate". (Although Paddy did not say so, I think that Paddy must have been happy that he was defended against other's misinterpretation.)

From 1952 to 1966 he was a Lecturer in Economics, then from 1966 to 1975 be became Associate Professor of Political Economy (Applied Economics) and finally was appointed Professor of Economics from 1975 to 1980. He became Professor Emeritus of Economics at UCD upon his retirement from 1980 to 2001. He was also to sit on the National Industrial and Economic Council (forerunner of NESC). He ran a Science/Economics centre in UCD and worked up his vision of science policy with his colleagues in the Science Faculty.

He had a great intellect and succinct political judgment. Lynch received Bertrand Russell's protégé Ludwig Wittgenstein on his visits to Ireland and they would travel to the west of the country. Within the Faculties of Arts and Commerce in UCD, he was regarded with great respect by his colleagues and his students. When the development of postgraduate business degrees was being canvassed, he was one of the first senior academics to support the new academic development. He spoke in favour when very few voices were heard to say much in support of this major initiative and was the first lecturer in economics on the first MBA program in Europe. He was also instrumental in developing the Masters in Public Administration course in UCD - Dick Roche the future Minister was one of his first students on this programme. While a proponent of Keynesian economics, he appreciated and taught his students about the developing fields of financial and monetary economics of modern market economies.

He was not initially supportive of the UCD move from Earlsfort Terrace to the Belfield campus but later agreed it was the right move. He was a key member of the Governing Body of UCD from 1964 to 1976 and the Senate of National University of Ireland from 1972 to 1977 where his views were marked not only for their sagacity but their uncompromising integrity. A voracious reader, Lynch read widely in all areas of economics, theoretical and applied, but the breath of his interests transcended economic analysis and extended into many diverse areas in politics, sociology and general literature.

UCD economists of the 1950s and 1960s used to meet informally in the Royal Irish Yacht Club most Sunday evenings for dinner under the aegis of George O'Brien. Lynch would lead many of the discussions on current topics and contributed to the excellent speeches, which George delivered in the Irish Senate, the upper house Seanad Éireann. Having read into the small hours every night, Lynch would regale his colleagues with his distillation of the best of his reading and its relevance. These dinners were a joy and are well remembered by those who were lucky enough to be present. On occasion there could be a sense of minor embarrassment if one were asked to comment on a recently published book, unread by anyone else.

Lynch was an active member and Trustee of the Kildare Street and University Club on St Stephen's Green up to 2001. One member who was an historian recalls after recently joining the club that he decided to join the members table for lunch one Saturday. Paddy was at the table and took every opportunity to include him in the table converstation and make him feel welcome among the other members.

He was active in and contributed to all these areas while still playing a very full role as an academic and in the academic and managerial affairs of UCD. He has had a record in UCD of being at all times available to students and of broadening, challenging and testing their academic vision and hypotheses. He spearheaded academic consideration of, for instance, planning for economic development, transport economics, investment in education, financial and monetary economics, the economics of science and technology and science policy, energy economics, the economics of the environment and sustainable socio-economic development before they became fashionable as academic and public policy issues. He professed what may have been new, unusual and indeed strange because he believed in it. In all cases, time has vindicated his vision and his judgement. Through his career, and in his public and personal life Patrick Lynch has devoted his life to many of those values that any University treasures. Interwoven with his national level activities has been Patrick Lynch’s activity at the international level. He has published much, nationally and internationally, and has spoken and lectured widely on many of the most widely acclaimed social and economic problems of the day before they were accepted as such or had become fashionable.

He also became the first and, to date, only member from Ireland of the prestigious Club of Rome, with members drawn from among scientists, humanists, economists, sociologists, educators and civil servants of Europe, in 1973. He was the recipient of many honours and it is not surprising that the achievements of such a person was acknowledged both at home and by the international community. In recognition of his academic standing, Patrick Lynch has been Fellow Commoner at Peterhouse College, Cambridge University. Moreover, he has been a member of many of the earlier European Union advisory groups such as the EEC Group EMU 1980 from 1974 to 1975, member of the Executive Council of the European Science Foundation from 1975 to 1977, Cooperation North from 1981 to 1984. He has acted as consultant to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), to the Council of Europe and to the Gullenkian Institute. He received honorary doctorates from the Brunel University (1976), from the University of Dublin (Trinity College, Dublin) (1979), from the National University of Ireland (1985) and National Council of Education Awards and from the University of Limerick (1994).

Transport Economics

Lynch' personal interest in Aviation focused on his support of the state airline Aer Lingus. In 1954, he was appointed chairman of Aer Lingus and Aer Rianta at the young age of 38, taking on the task of turning the £60,000 deficit of the companies into a profit. He was Chairman for 21 years to 1975, and retired from that position at his own request to the Government of the day. Even with changes of Government, they retained him in this position and this was testimony to their faith in his leadership. The chairmanship of Aer Lingus was a special pride to him. He brought to this organisation not only a unique perspective on the business world but also the judgment of a skilled economist wise in the ways of the world. Lynch helped secure government funds to maintain the company. As if this were not enough for any one career, Lynch was also involved in Irish corporate business at the highest levels.

Public Service

Lynch believed in a positive role for the State in the promotion of economic and social development. Paralleling these public service and academic careers, he has left his imprint on the Irish Public Service and business, and on both national and international policies for socio-economic development. In spite of the remarkable variety of commitments, which he already had, he found time to become founder chairman of the National Library Society of Ireland in 1969. In 1973, in addition to his many other interests, he was also chairman of the Institute of Public Administration to 1976.

He has acted as economic consultant to the Department of Finance and he has directed and acted as Chairman of two major surveys sponsored by the Irish Government and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development from 1962 to 1966. First, there was the survey on long term Irish educational needs which resulted in that most important work and publication: “Investment in Education”; and, second, the survey into the requirements of the Irish economy in respect of scientific research, development and technology which resulted in the fundamental publication: “Science and Irish Economic Development”. Much of what was reported and recommended in both these major works, relating to national policy for investment in education and in science and technology, is still relevant today.

He was a member of the Capital Investment Advisory Committee of the mid-1950s, which delineated the use of the tax system as an engine of economic development - a key plank of Irish policy ever since. He had input also into the “Investment in Education” report - which laid the foundation of the educational infrastructure of today. He spent almost ten years on the National Science Council, and early on grasped the necessity of public investment in research and development (an insight which eventually bore fruit in today’s Science Foundation Ireland). And he was first chairman of the Public Service Advisory Council, set up to implement reforms (an objective still ongoing in the current Strategic Management Initiative).

In less official capacities, Lynch advocated what were ground-breaking views for the time. At the discussions of the Statistical and Social Inquiry Society in the 1940s and 1950s, with Ken Whitaker and others he endeavoured to “model” for civil servants that coherent public presentation of policies which alone, he believed, would engender citizen confidence in an administration. In 1973 he was invited to join the 100-member Club of Rome - which was even then warning governments about sustainability: either the world’s population-growth had to be contained, or restraints had to be put on the frantic pursuit of economic growth based on non-renewable chemicals or other raw material. Though pragmatic, his educational philosophy fell squarely in the liberal tradition - he noted that Jacques Maritain “used to argue that the trouble with utilitarian education was that it was not utilitarian enough”. He drew out - and helped them develop - the best ideas of a whole generation of students and forward-looking thinkers.

He has been long-serving Chairman and/or a member of many Irish Government commissions and committees: the Medico-Social Research Board from 1966 to 1972, the National Economic and Social Council, the Public Service Advisory Council, the Economic and Social Research Institute where he served as chairman from 1983 to 1988, the Institute of Public Administration, the Higher Education Authority from 1968 to 1972, Patron of the British-Irish Association and the National Science Council from 1967 to 1977. These are some of the national level bodies to which he has devoted his efforts and to which he has contributed greatly.

Energy Economics

Lynch's work covered many branches of modern economics, it called to those of lesser years to be prepared to accept any challenge that their field of endeavour placed before them. Long before the beginning of modern inflation and energy market price risk volatility, Lynch was giving consideration to sustainability of energy supply in a State that imported most of it’s energy inputs of oil and gas. The only natural resource for energy was turf and he turned his mind to this subject. He explored this in a research monograph for the Science and Irish Economic Development of the OECD in 1964 with H M S (Dusty) Miller, an English engineer who then headed the R&D department of Bord na Mona the peat development board. They acknowledged positively the influence of J D Bernal FRS, whose classic 1939 book 'The Social Function of Science' played a seminal and productive role in science policy analysis, from a consciously Marxist angle. The Bernalist model was influential in the USSR and Eastern Europe. In the over-emphasis on the top-down role of the central State the Bernal model was however flawed, and science policy in Ireland shows signs of this parentage. Lynch was apolitical but considered this an interesting idea to explore. It is worth noting that he mused as to stability of prices and would remind his students of the lessons of medieval inflation after the discovery of the Americas. He recognised that energy economics was a key background factor to the Falklands War in the early 1980s. Dusty Miller was to become one of the founders of an enterprise centre in the old Classic cinema in Terenure that served as an incubator for embronic businesses.

Civil Rights

Lynch was chairman of the Irish anti-apartheid movement in the early 1970s. He espoused and directed this cause at a time when, perhaps, it was not seen as clearly to be “the right thing to do” as has been the case in recent times. Here, as in many other areas, time has borne out his integral sense of fair play and wisdom, his solid judgement, and his deep sense of human and social justice. Paralleling this anti-apartheid activity, he contributed to the Irish Council for Civil Liberties and the Movement for Peace in Ireland. In the 1970s, too (and while chairman of Aer Lingus), he was to be seen leading an anti-apartheid march down O’Connell St.

He was a member of the Association for Civil Liberties and of the Anti-Apartheid Movement although he did not agree with the academic boycott of South Africa. In 1986, when violent protests forced Dr Conor Cruise O'Brien to abandon a series of lectures at the non-discriminatory University of Cape Town, he publicly attacked the Anti-Apartheid Movement's then chairman, Kader Asmal, who had accused Dr O'Brien of betrayal. Dr O'Brien had spent part of his career helping the University of Ghana become established. The academic boycott of open universities was a perversion of the role of the movement, he said. He was a mentor to Dr O'Brien’s adopted son Patrick.

Financial Economics

In 1959, he became a director of the Provincial Bank of Ireland to 1966 when it merged with two other banks to become AIB. Lynch was made a director of the AIB Group bank in 1970. Lynch served as Joint Deputy Chairman with Joe McGlinn on the board of directors of AIB Group from 1976 to 1990, as the bank begun to expand overseas into the UK, US and Europe. Lynch believed "the most important, significant and, I would add, far sighted move for an institution in a small open economy with an agriculture base". He was also a director of Allied Irish Finance Company from 1976 to 1982.

Death

Lynch died of cancer after a short illness of a couple of months at St. Vincent’s University Hospital in South Dublin. He had faced this disease bravely on an earlier occasion in his life. One former student who was studying for his PhD in Finance at Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania recalls another of Paddy’s students who was studying for a PhD at University of Michigan in Economics travelling to inform him that Paddy was seriously ill and about to under go a major operation by an eminent Irish surgeon. The irony was Paddy survived both his surgeon and the student who informed him of the illness for many years.

Even in death, his students were close to his heart and he left his body to medicine. He was a retired 84-year-old economist living in Wellington Road, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4. His second wife, Mary Moloney survived him along with family members Gordon, Louanna and Patrick and his sister Margaret, each of whom will greatly miss a man of high accomplishment and unusual warmth of personality. Patrick Lynch enjoyed music and reading and was an excellent conversationalisthttp://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2001/1203/01120300093.html Irish Times, 12 December 2001.. He left significant parts of his library and papers to the National Library of Ireland and to UCD.

Influence

Lynch's theories and ideas were so influential, that a subfield of Economic Development economics called Hibernian economics about the growth of the Irish Celtic tiger economy is further developing and discussing his theories and their applications to small open economies. But he also warned against pursuing economic growth as an end in itself, noting that it contributed less to the general welfare of the community than spending on education, health, housing and social security. When others still feared the power of communism towards the end of the Cold War in the early 1980s, he foresaw the rise to power of the Islamic ‘stans’ and the inability of the USSR to maintain their geopolitical influence and power base in that region of the world. His provocative ideas are inspiring the new member states of the European Union to learn from the Irish experience of integrating with a large economic trading bloc.

Lynch had several cultural and intellectual interests and was a central figure as treasurer in the Royal Irish Academy from 1971 to 1980 and Royal Dublin Society, consisting of prominent thinkers, leaders and authors in Ireland. In 1984, the Royal Dublin Society conferred honorary life membership on him in recognition of his contribution to academic, economic and business life and to the advancement of economic planning and development.

He was rather disappointed about his period on the Public Advisory Council, which he said ‘achieved nothing whatever in promoting reform because of the absolute resistance to change among senior civil servants.’ A profound thinker on the relationship between social and economic affairs, he was described by one colleague as radical when the prevailing orthodoxy in the Republic was very conservative. Nevertheless, he could be critical about the universities, too, describing them as among ‘the most conservative forces in our society’.

Philosophy

Lynch's views at times did not sit well in a country of strong traditional Catholic views that were influenced by European continential thinking, Rome in particular and not that city of the era of the Caesars. While reared a Catholic by his family, he seemed to have developed serious reservations about this institution in early adulthood. In particular, he seem to have a great understanding of those that exercised power in the Hierarchy and wondered deeply about their motives and whether they could ever be agents for change or to preserve the status quo.

He was a man that wanted change, progress, improvement and would not be placated with offering up either his own suffering or that of anybody else. Like a man walking from the pages of the Beatitudes;""Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.Blessed are the meek: for they shall possess the land.Blessed are they who mourn: for they shall be comforted.Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice: for they shall have their fill.Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.Blessed are the clean of heart: for they shall see God.Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.Blessed are they that suffer persecution for justice' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.""

He always wanted justice, to make peace, have integrity, speak the truth, be fair, show mercy, feed the hungry minds and bring some comfort to those that were troubled. In this lifestyle, he would have been a follower of St. Matthew in his own way, setting an example and quietly pricking the consciences of others. Nobody ever suggested, let alone accused him of being the one to cast the first stone and for a man that survived the life of academic politics, to this day nobody has figured out how he did it.