Patrick Lynch

Patrick Lynch (born 1715, died 1789) was an Irish emigrant who became a significant landowner in Rio de la Plata, which is now part of Argentina.

He was born in Galway and was the second son of Captain Patrick Lynch of Lydycan Lydican Castle and Agnes Blake. The Lynches and the Blakes were two of the 14 tribes of Galway, who dominated the political, commercial, and social life of the city of Galway in western Ireland between the mid-13th and late-19th centuries. The Lynches had been leaving Ireland since their defeat at the hands of Cromwell's forces and later those of William of Orange, Patrick left in the 1740s for Bilbao, Spain, and travelled from there to Rio de la Plata, where he settled and was a "regidor" (royal representative) and captain in the "Milicias". In 1749, in Buenos Aires, he married Rosa de Galayn y de la Camara, a wealthy heiress. He was successful enough to pass on substantial lands to his eldest surviving son, Justo Pastor Lynch who was a customs official under Viceroy Cisneros, also a captain and regidor. He was confirmed in his post by the revolutionary government on account of his well-known probity.

Lynch's descendants through various branches of the family include the following:

• Patricio (Patrick) Lynch, (grandson), who set up a shipping company. He fitted the privateer frigate "Heroina", commanded by the American Colonel David Jewett which went after Spanish ships in 1820. Patricio Lynch married Maria Isabel de Zavaleta y Riglos, a descendant of the Conquistador Domingo Martínez de Irala through the Spanish aristocrat Riquelme de Guzman, who was forced by Irala to marry Ursula, one of his mestizo daughters. Patricio and Maria are the great-great-grandparents of Che Guevara, (see below).
• Estanislao Lynch, (grandson) a former officer in the Argentine Army of the Andes, brother of Patricio, above
• Benito Lynch (grandson) who fought at Trafalgar
• Patricio Lynch, (great-grandson), a rear-admiral in the Chilean Navy, who served in China in HMS Calliope, son of Estanislao, above
• Francisco Lynch, (great-grandson), Argentine soldier who participated in the War of Independence and the civil wars of his country, and the Cisplatine War. Great-grandfather of Che Guevara.
• Benito Lynch, (great-great-great-grandson), Argentine novelist and short-story writer of gaucho literature
• Enrique Lynch del Solar, (great-great-grandson) Chilean painter, organizer of the modernist art movement in Valparaiso, Chile
• Nicolás Barrios-Lynch, (great-great-great-grandson) Argentine educator and researcher, founder of Argentina's Rural Libraries movement
• Adolfo Bioy Casares, (great-great-great-great-grandson), Argentine writer
• Ernesto Guevara Lynch, (great-great-great-grandson) father of Che Guevara
• Che Guevara, (great-great-great-great-grandson), Argentine revolutionary