[3] Lynch previously served as Chairman of Sinn Féin in Fermanagh and as a senior member of the district policing partnership in the county.

[4] Lynch previously stood for the Fermanagh and South Tyrone constituency in the 2007 Northern Ireland Assembly election but was unsuccessful.

Born in 1954 into a Roman Catholic farming family in rural County Fermanagh, he is the eldest of 12 children and was raised near Lisnaskea,[10] where he currently lives.

[11][12] In April 1986 Lynch was seriously wounded and fellow IRA member Séamus McElwaine was shot dead when the SAS opened fire on them as they prepared to ambush a passing army patrol with a land mine on the Lisnaskea to Roslea road.

The jury ruled the SAS soldiers had opened fire without giving McElwaine a chance to surrender, and that he was actually shot dead five minutes after being wounded.

In September 2011, Tommy Maguire was co-opted onto Fermanagh District Council[22][23] Lynch retained his seat in the 2016 Assembly Election with 4,782 first preference votes.