Lynch, (Robert) Roebuck (c.1606–1667), 2nd baronet, lawyer, and politician, was eldest son of Henry Lynch (d. 1634), 1st baronet (1622), and Elizabeth, daughter of Richard Martin and widow of James Darcy. The Lynches, one of the ‘tribes of Galway’, had extensive landholdings throughout the province of Connacht. Henry Lynch served as mayor of Galway, and MP for the county, probably as a result of his close links with Richard Burke (qv), 4th earl of Clanricarde. Roebuck married Ellís, daughter of Sir Peter French, which meant that Patrick Darcy (qv) and Richard Martin (qv), two of Galway's most prominent lawyers, were his brothers-in-law; Darcy was also his stepbrother. Educated initially in Oxford, under the close supervision of Clanricarde, Lynch received his legal training in Middle Temple, which he entered in 1624. A member of King's Inns in Dublin from 1628, he was elected mayor of Galway in 1638. Lynch rose to national prominence for opposing the plantation policies in Connacht of the lord deputy, Thomas Wentworth (qv). Elected to the Irish parliament in 1640 as a member for Galway city, he quickly emerged as one of the catholic leaders in the commons, sitting on a number of important committees. In December Lynch travelled to England, as a member of a parliamentary delegation, to present a remonstrance of grievances to Charles I. He was a witness for the prosecution at Wentworth's trial, and returned to Ireland in the summer of 1641.
After the outbreak of the Ulster rebellion (October 1641), Lynch, a political moderate, worked hard to prevent the disorder spreading to Connacht. He served as a member of the ‘council of eight’ in Galway, who governed the city during the initial months of the rising, and maintained close contact throughout the 1640s with Ulick Burke (qv), 5th earl of Clanricarde, the leading catholic royalist in Ireland. Forced to leave the city in May 1642, as the moderates temporarily lost control, Lynch decided in early 1643 to join the confederate association. He attended the general assemblies in Kilkenny on a regular basis, and was an active and influential member of the executive supreme council. Despite his commitments on the national stage, Lynch continued to serve as an alderman in Galway, and on the Connacht provincial council. A devout catholic, he supported the papal nuncio, GianBattista Rinuccini (qv), in opposing the peace treaty with the royalists in 1646, but soon afterwards associated himself with the moderate faction led by Nicholas Plunkett (qv). The split in confederate ranks in 1648 over the truce with the royalist commander in Munster, Murrough O'Brien (qv), Lord Inchiquin, forced many moderates into one or other of the opposing camps. Lynch initially sided with the peace faction against the nuncio, but thereafter favoured conciliation and compromise. He abandoned Kilkenny for Galway, and refused to attend the final general assembly in September 1648, although he kept in close contact with the confederate capital. He adhered to the second peace treaty (January 1649) with the lord lieutenant, James Butler (qv), marquess of Ormond.
When Clanricarde succeeded Ormond as leader of the royalist cause in Ireland in late 1650, Lynch travelled to Brussels on his behalf, seeking assistance from the duke of Lorraine. The mission failed, and he returned to the war in Ireland, where he witnessed the surrender of Galway to the forces of the English parliament (April 1652). Lynch accepted transplantation lands in Galway and Castlecana, Co. Mayo, but recovered much of his estate after the restoration of Charles II in 1660. He lived in quiet retirement during his final years, and died in 1667.