Walter Lynch (1595–1663) was an Irish prelate who served as

Bishop of Clonfert The Bishop of Clonfert () is an episcopal title which takes its name after the village of Clonfert in County Galway, Ireland. In the Roman Catholic Church it remains as a separate title; but in the Church of Ireland it has been united with oth ...

in the seventeenth century. He arrived in Ireland in 1647; and was appointed on 11 March 1647 and consecrated on 9 April 1648. He left as a

refugee A refugee, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), is a person "forced to flee their own country and seek safety in another country. They are unable to return to their own country because of feared persecution as ...

following the

Cromwellian conquest of Ireland The Cromwellian conquest of Ireland (1649–1653) was the re-conquest of Ireland by the Commonwealth of England, initially led by Oliver Cromwell. It forms part of the 1641 to 1652 Irish Confederate Wars, and wider 1639 to 1653 Wars of the Three ...

and spent the rest of his life serving in the

Roman Catholic Diocese of Győr The Diocese of Győr (, , ) is a diocese of the Latin Church of the Catholic Church in Hungary. The diocese is suffragan to the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Esztergom-Budapest, Archdiocese of Esztergom-Budapest. The diocese is believed to have be ...

Hungary Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...

. Lynch died there on 14 July 1663.

Legacy

In honour of the

Irish Catholic Martyrs Irish Catholic Martyrs () were 24 Irish men and women who have been beatified or canonized for both a life of heroic virtue and for dying for their Catholic faith between the reign of King Henry VIII and Catholic Emancipation in 1829. The more ...

, a copy of the weeping "Irish Madonna of Hungary", which was removed by Bishop Lynch from the former diocesan cathedral to preserve it from desecration during the

, was presented in 2003 to the

Roman Catholic Diocese of Clonfert The Diocese of Clonfert () is a Latin Church diocese of the Catholic Church in the western part of Ireland. It is in the Metropolitan Province of Tuam. Michael Duignan was appointed by the Holy See on 16 July 2019 and ordained bishop on 13 Oc ...

by Bishop Pápai Janos of the

and now hangs inside

St Brendan's Cathedral, Loughrea The Cathedral of St. Brendan, Loughrea, is the cathedral church of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Clonfert. The cathedral was designed in Neo-Gothic style and houses one of the most extensive collections of arts and crafts and Celtic Revival arte ...

.Hungarian bishop to present 'Irish Madonna'
by Patsy McGarry, ''

The Irish Times ''The Irish Times'' is an Irish daily broadsheet newspaper and online digital publication. It was launched on 29 March 1859. The editor is Ruadhán Mac Cormaic. It is published every day except Sundays. ''The Irish Times'' is Ireland's leading n ...

'', Friday October 10, 2003.

References

Roman Catholic bishops of Clonfert 17th-century Roman Catholic bishops in Ireland 1663 deaths 1595 births {{Ireland-RC-bishop-stub