Robert P. Lynch was born in Queens, and now resides on the North Shore of Nassau County, Long Island.New York. He is a graduate of St. John’s University, where he received a BA in history in 1977, and of St. John’s Law School, where he received a Doctor of Laws degree in 1980. Robert is a practicing attorney, with offices located Williston Park.
Robert cherishes his Irish roots and heritage. He has from his youth been an activist in Irish causes and follows a long family practice of love and support for both the countries of their origin and adoption, keeping one foot firmly planted on each side of the Atlantic. While he is “first generation” on his mother’s side, from Kiltimagh, in Mayo, the same county, along with Kerry, produced his earliest American ancestors, in the early 19th Centurey, followed by his maternal great-grandparents who arrived here from Westmeath in the early 1900′s. He has traveled to his ancestral homeland many times for family, political and musical activities.
Robert devised the idea of a consortium he called Cairdenet, (invoking in loose Irish translation the idea of a “net of friends”) to allow Irish, religious, charitable and cultural associations he was involved with to establish and maintain a presence on the internet, something they had hitherto been slow to do for financial and technical reasons. As part of this arrangement Division 8 was able to establish one of the first and largest Hibernian websites in the Metropolitan area.
Robert is well known as a traditional Irish piper. Robert has been active for many years in a wide variety of efforts in support of peace and freedom in his ancestral homeland. He is a founding member of the Brehon Law Societies of both NYC and Long Island. He is an outspoken and active supporter of the Irish peace process, being a member of a delegation which met twice with the International Monitoring Commission (IMC) monitoring the Irish ceasefire and of the first Irish American delegation to meet with the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) to encourage the formation of the present coalition government between that party and the Sinn Féin party.
In addition to his legal practice, instructs students in the Irish tin whistle and pipes. He is an active member of St. Boniface Parish in Sea Cliff, where he is a Eucharistic Minister the webmaster and instructs parents in the Baptism program.
He is a member of the County Tyrone and County. Mayo Societies, the Co. Tyrone Pipers, the Long Island Uilleann Pipers and was a founder of the North Shore Irish American Cultural Society and the St. John’s University Irish Society.