[4][5] In 1909, at the age of 17, he started an apprenticeship in O'Neill's hardware shop in Mitchelstown, where he joined the Gaelic League and the Ancient Order of Hibernians.

In the aftermath of the 1916 Easter Rising, he witnessed David and Thomas Kent of Bawnard House being taken through Fermoy after their arrest by the Royal Irish Constabulary.

[8] He helped capture a senior British officer, General Cuthbert Lucas, in June 1920, shooting a Colonel Danford in the incident.

[9] Having "made himself a leader out of force of his own convictions ... possessed by a sense of mission and by revolutionary ardour",[10] Lynch believed independence could only be "hewed" by the British.

[citation needed] In September 1920, Lynch, along with Ernie O'Malley, commanded a force that took the British Army barracks at Mallow.

The War of Independence ended formally with the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty between the Irish negotiating team and the British government in December 1921.

Lynch was opposed to the Treaty, on the grounds that it disestablished the Irish Republic proclaimed in 1916 in favour of Dominion status for Ireland within the British Empire.

However, at the Third Army Convention on 18 June, following the defeat of a proposal he opposed — to restart hostilities with the British — a diehard faction broke away from his leadership and set up a new GHQ at the Four Courts.

[16] This rift had been healed by the time the Four Courts garrison was attacked by the newly formed National Army on 28 June, which marked the beginning of the Irish Civil War.

His counterpart Michael Collins was killed in an ambush at Béal na mBláth, Cork on 22 August, a week after the death of Arthur Griffith.

In response, the Free State shot four republican leaders, Rory O'Connor, Liam Mellows, Dick Barrett and Joe McKelvey the next day.

[28] Lynch was heavily criticised by some republicans, notably O'Malley, for his failure to coordinate their war effort and for letting the conflict peter out into inconclusive and defensive guerrilla warfare.

[29] Other IRA volunteers felt that while Lynch was a decent man, he had failed to organise and lead the anti-treaty forces properly and did not possess the mind-set of a revolutionary to strike early for a swift victory.

Knowing the value of the papers they carried, he ordered his men, including soon-to-be chief of staff Frank Aiken, to leave him behind.

Lynch was carried on an improvised stretcher manufactured from guns to Nugent's (formally Walsh's) pub in Newcastle at the foot of the mountains and was later brought to the hospital in Clonmel, where he died that evening at 9 pm.

[36] According to historian Tom Mahon, the Irish Civil War was "effectively ended" by the shot that killed Liam Lynch.

[37] On 7 April 1935, 12 years later, the Fianna Fáil Government of Éamon de Valera erected a 60-foot-high (18 m) round tower monument on the spot (52°15′6.43″N 7°51′26.16″W / 52.2517861°N 7.8572667°W / 52.2517861; -7.8572667) where Lynch was thought to have fallen in the Knockmealdown Mountains.

The Irish Defence Forces barracks at Kilworth, County Cork, is named Camp Ó Loingsigh after Liam Lynch.

[citation needed] The bloodied tunic worn by Lynch on the day he was shot is on permanent display at the National Museum at Collins Barracks in Dublin.

The Good Friday Agreement, which ended The Troubles in Northern Ireland, was signed on 10 April 1998, the 75th anniversary of Lynch's death.