Educated at St. Flannan's College, Ennis and CBS, Nenagh, Lynch represented his native Tipperary in cycle racing and won his first race at the age of 17. His biggest success was the 1956 100 km Cooper Cup race in Dublin’s Phoenix Park.

Lynch spent a number of years working as a clerk in Dublin. During this time he met writers Brendan Behan and Patrick Kavanagh and wrote his first newspaper features.

In 1961, he emigrated to London, where he became a disciple of the pacifist philosopher, Bertrand Russell. He was imprisoned for his part in Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament activities in the 1960s.

After ten years working in a bank, a succession of part-time jobs enabled him to satisfy his longtime ambitions to go motor racing. He survived a number of serious accidents and won one race at Mondello Park in 1976.

Lynch helped launch the low-cost Formula Vee category of motor racing in Ireland. He did this with the help of a trophy donated by World Champion, Emerson Fittipaldi. Formula Vee enabled many enthusiasts experience motor racing for the first time. It became Ireland’s most popular single-seater class.

His articles on motor racing for the Fulham Chronicle and Kensington Post lead to features in Autosport and Motoring News and international journals such as Autosprint (Bologna), Autohebdo (Paris) and Autosport (Canada). Within a short while, he became Grand Prix correspondent for Irish media and also the London-based Daily Mail and The Observer.

Lynch traveled extensively in Europe and Asia before returning to Dublin in 1985 to concentrate on feature writing and books. He has written general features for many media outlets, including The Irish Times, Sunday Tribune, The Times and The European.

He is a member of the Irish Writers Union and The Guild of Motoring Writers. In 1988 he won the latter's "Pierre Dreyfus Award" (presented annually by Renault in honour of Pierre Dreyfus, president director general of Renault from 1955—75) for his first book, Green Dust.