John Lynch (bishop of Elphin)

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John Fitzjames Lynch was an Irish Anglican bishop active in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. He was born in Galway and studied at New Inn Hall, Oxford. He became Rector of Littleton-upon-Severn in 1561 and Canon of Wells in 1564. In 1583 he was appointed Bishop of Elphin, a position he held until his resignation on 19 August 1611 after converting to Roman Catholicism. He had impoverished his diocese by selling off property, but his successor, Edward King, restored its finances. The Annals of Loch Cé, in an entry for 1588 written by Catholic clerics, describe him as a "wicked, heretical bishop" and recount an unusual weather event—a snow shower in midsummer. Some historians say this strange weather may reflect the colder conditions of the Little Ice Age.