Born in Youghal, Co. Cork in 1938, Sr Maura was the fourth of nine children, born to Patrick and Jane Lynch. Patrick Lynch worked for An Post and with each promotion was transferred, so the family lived at various times in Youghal, Carrick-on-Shannon, Killarney, Tralee and Limerick before finally moving to Dublin. Their mother was a teacher and the family spoke Irish at home. Sr Maura joined the Medical Missionaries of Mary at 17 after doing her Leaving Cert, trained as a doctor in UCD, and came in the top three in her graduating class in 1965. After an internship at St Vincent’s Hospital she went to London and took a Diploma in obstetrics and gynaecology at the Royal College of Obstetrics and Gynaecology there.

She went on to Lisbon where she studied tropical medicine and learned Portuguese, as it had already been decided by the Missionaries that she was going to Angola, a Portuguese Colony. She arrived there in 1967 and carried out clinical work at the 200-bed Chiulo Mission hospital. Her clinical work concentrated on obstetrics and paediatrics and there was a large cohort of patients with TB and leprosy. After 17 years there, she realised there was a great need for more specialist surgery, so she returned to Ireland in 1984 and at the age of 46, began training as a surgeon at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. She signed the Register of Fellows of RCSI as ‘Mary Lynch’, 3^rd July 1985.