John Lynch (actor)

John Lynch
Lynch in 2015
Born	Northern Ireland
Alma mater	Royal Central School of Speech and Drama
Occupation(s)	Actor, novelist
Years active	1984–present
Spouse	Mary McGuckian ​ ​ (m. 1997; sep. 2008)​
Relatives	Susan Lynch (sister) Leah O'Rourke (niece)

John Lynch is an Irish actor and novelist. He won the AFI (AACTA) Award for Best Actor for the 1995 film Angel Baby. His other film and television appearances include Cal (1984), The Secret Garden (1993), In the Name of the Father (1993), Sliding Doors (1998), The Fall (2013–2016), Medici (2019), The Head (2020–2022), and The Banishing (2021).

Lynch has also written two novels, Torn Water (2005) and Falling Out of Heaven (2010).

Lynch was born in Ireland to an Irish father, Fin Lynch, and an Italian mother, Rosina Pavone, better known as Rose.^[1][2][3] His mother was from Trivento, a town in the Province of Campobasso in Molise, Southern Italy. His parents met in London, where his mother was a teacher.^[4] He is the eldest of five children,^[2][3] and was raised as a Catholic.^[1]

In 1968, when he was seven years old, he moved with his family to the townland of Corrinshego, where his father was from, in County Armagh, Northern Ireland. Corrinshego, where he spent the rest of his childhood and teenage years, is on the western outskirts of Newry.^[1][5][4] Lynch later attended St. Colman's College in Newry. He began acting in Irish language plays at school during the early years of The Troubles in Northern Ireland. His sister Susan Lynch and his nephew Thomas Finnegan are also actors.^[3]

Lynch has appeared in numerous films related to Northern Ireland's problems such as Cal (1984) with Helen Mirren,^[5] for which he was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer to Leading Film Roles,^[6] The Railway Station Man (1992) with Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland, In the Name of the Father (1993) with Daniel Day-Lewis, Nothing Personal (1995) and Some Mother's Son (1996), also with Mirren, as well as the Irish-themed film Evelyn (2002).^[7] In Some Mother's Son he played the role of Irish Republican hunger strike leader Bobby Sands.

He was a supporting actor in Derek Jarman's Edward II (1991), as Lord Craven in Agnieska Holland's film The Secret Garden (1993), as Tadhg in The Secret of Roan Inish (1994), and as Gerry in Sliding Doors (1998).^[7]

Lynch played the lead in the Australian feature Angel Baby,^[7] winning the Australian Film Institute award for best leading actor and the Australian Film Critics award for best actor of 1995.^[8] He was nominated for a Satellite Film Award for the film Moll Flanders in 1996.^[7] He worked with acclaimed Belgian director Marion Hänsel on her adaptation of Booker Prize-nominated author Damon Galgut's novel, The Quarry (also known as La Faille; 1998),^[5] which won Best Film at the Montreal World Film Festival. Lynch played the part of football legend George Best in the 2000 film Best.^[7] He won Best Actor for his role in Best at the Fort Lauderdale Film Festival in 2000.^[7] He wrote and co-produced the film.^[5]

In 2005, Lynch was nominated for an IFTA for his role in The Baby War.^[9] He starred in Five Day Shelter as Stephen, which won a European Film Award and was in competition at the Rome Film Festival. In 2011, he played the lead in Craig Vivieros' first feature film, the prison drama Ghosted. He played the role of Wollfstan in Black Death, and appeared in the 2012 film version of Michael Morpurgo's novel, Private Peaceful.^[7]

Lynch is also a novelist. His first novel, Torn Water, was published in November 2005 by 4th Estate, a literary imprint of HarperCollins, and his second, Falling Out of Heaven, was published on 13 May 2010 by the same publisher.^[5]

Lynch married film-maker Mary McGuckian in 1997, having met her on the set of Words Upon the Window Pane a few years earlier.^[4] They separated in 2008 and later divorced. As of 2023, he resides in Nice with his wife, Christine.^[1][3][10]

• John Lynch at IMDb