Joe Lynch, who played Dinny Byrne in the RT╔ television series Glenroe, died on August 1st aged 76.
He had made such an impression in Wesley Burrowes's six-hour RT╔ Television series Bracken in this role (together with Mick Lally as Dinny's son Miley), that it became a leading role in the spin-off series Glenroe, which ran from 1983 to May of this year. But acting in television soaps was only a small part of the achievements of this versatile actor, comedian, singer and musician.
Joseph Laurence Lynch was born in Mallow, Co Cork, on July 16th, 1926, the son of engine driver Jim Lynch and his wife Madge Delany, a book-binder. He was educated at the North Monastery CBS and, later, at Blackrock College, Dublin, during the headmastership of John Charles McQuaid, whom he greatly admired and under whose influence he was later to join the Knights of St Colombanus.
While at Blackrock, he was capped for cricket, rugby and handball, but turned down the offer of trials as a professional soccer player. He studied music and played a variety of instruments, including piano and tin whistle, as well as developing his fine tenor voice; he was also a competent Irish dancer.
Like so many well-known Cork actors, he began his career as a schoolboy with the famous Shakespearian company at the Loft. He then went on to act, part-time, in the Cork Opera House, while also managing a wine business.
He joined the Radio ╔ireann Repertory Company on its foundation in 1947. He not only acted in the rep, but also sang and compΦred programmes, including Young at Heart and Just a Memory; he will probably be best remembered by radio audiences in the 1940s and 1950s for the Balladmakers' Saturday Night programme and for the first comedy series of its type on RT╔: Living With Lynch. Written by Dermot Doolan and the late Michael McGarry and starring Joe Lynch with the late Charlie Byrne and Ronnie Walsh, the series ran from 1954-1958.
His fine singing voice, heard in such programmes, led to many recordings of popular airs such as The Rose of Mooncoin, The Wandering Gypsy and The Stone Outside Dan Murphy's Door.
His stage experience was wide, ranging from heading the bill in variety at theatres all over Britain to the role of the Bull McCabe in J.B. Keane's The Field at the Abbey and Christy Mahon at the Gaiety in The Heart's A Wonder (the musical based on The Playboy of the Western World). He had already played the same role in the original Synge play opposite Br∅d N∅ Loinsigh at the Abbey.
He also played the key role of the waiter in Shaw's You Never Can Tell at the Gate and spent many hours during the rehearsal period in the Trocadero restaurant in Dublin's Andrew Street studying the correct setting of tables and waitering technique.
During the two-month run, he developed an allergy, caused by the droppings of pigeons who had developed squatters' rights in the Gate. He complained nightly to Christine Longford, joint director of the theatre with her husband, Lord Longford, until she exclaimed in exasperation: "You're only complaining about the pigeons because you can't fly yourself!"
But if he could not fly like a pigeon he always said that he took the controls himself on the plane which flew him to his honeymoon, after his wedding in 1952 to former air hostess Marie Nutty from Clontarf. Moreover, his colleagues have always been forced to admit in the end that anything he said always turned out to be correct and that there was almost nothing he could not do.
He played the part of Blazes Boylan, Molly Bloom's lover, in Joseph Strick's film of Joyce's Ulysses, as well as appearing in many Irish-produced films in the early days of Ardmore Studios. He also appeared with Eamonn Andrews on the top-ranking US television programme: The Robert Lewis Show. He became well-known throughout Britain for his television appearances in Coronation Street as Ron Mailer, the cabbie boyfriend of Elsie Tanner, and as the Irish tailor in Never Mind the Quality, Feel the Width.
Proof of his popularity in London came with the award, made to him in 1973, of honorary membership of the Shopkeepers' Association, Chapel Market area.
He was also on the weekly BBC variety show Northern Showground, produced by Eamonn Andrews and Ronnie Taylor.
He was seen in many plays on RT╔ Television, most notably as Einstein in Friedrich Dⁿrrenmatt's The Physicists, in which some say he even out-acted Cyril Cusack and Ray McAnally, and few will forget his moving performance as Cathal Brugha in Hugh Leonard's Insurrection, the 1966 series celebrating the 50th anniversary of the 1916 Rising.
Joe Lynch cut himself off from Ireland when a dispute over his Glenroe contract caused him to leave the series last year at the end of its penultimate season, perhaps making its demise not long after inevitable. He retired with some bitterness to the home he had bought many years earlier in Alicante. The Joe Lynch who never stopped talking, telling stories and demonstrating his physical prowess had been replaced by a quieter man who lived only for his family.
Joe Lynch is survived by his wife Marie, son Mark, daughter Linda and brothers Noel and Jimmy. His second daughter Emmy died earlier this year.
Joe Lynch: born 1926; died, August 2001