Background and career
Shane Eamon Mark Stephen Lynch (born 3 July 1976) is an Irish singer, best known as a member of Boyzone. He has also taken part in auto racing, participated in reality shows such as Celebrity Big Brother in 2018 and appeared as a judge on The All Ireland Talent Show.
Born to Brendan - a mechanic - and Noeleen Lynch - a housewife - and raised in Donaghmede, North-east Dublin, Lynch struggled with his education during his school years due to dyslexia, but excelled at sports and was a motor racing enthusiast, winning the Portuguese BMX Championship at fourteen. Around this period he was expelled from school and began to work with his father as a mechanic.
In 1993, music manager Louis Walsh, who had managed Johnny Logan, held auditions in Dublin to find a new boyband to rival British group Take That. Lynch was the founding member and didn't audition. Before even recording any material, he and five other successful auditionees made their infamous appearance on RTÉ's The Late Late Show with Gay Byrne. Although their performance was criticised by the Irish press, the band became one of the most successful pop bands in Ireland. Lynch quickly gained a reputation as the bad boy of the group due to his body piercings, tattoos and violent outbursts which clashed with the band's clean-cut image. In 1999, he attended the MTV Europe Music Awards with the band, wearing a FUBU tracksuit to differentiate himself from Boyzone's consistent, tailored suits, and announced to the shocked audience "In the press recently, there's been a whole load of fucking shite about Boyzone in the year 2000 about breaking up, [but] we are not breaking up." Later that night, he was involved in a physical brawl with American rapper Puff Daddy. Two years later, at a live concert for Childline, Lynch turned to the camera and yelled: "Tabloid newspapers, you can kiss me fucking arse!"
In 2007, Boyzone reunited, completed a 29-date reunion tour, and released their comeback single on 29 September 2008, Love You Anyway, which was followed by a Greatest Hits album entitled Back Again... No Matter What released on 13 October 2008.
In 2004, during his break from Boyzone, Lynch played Eli Knox the chairman of Harchester United in the Sky One football drama, Dream Team. He has also appeared in pantomime, and starred in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs at the Wycombe Swan in High Wycombe, during the 2004 Christmas season. In 2006, he starred in Cinderella at the Tameside Hippodrome. In 2012, he starred as Abanazar at The Stag Theatre in Sevenoaks and in 2015 Captain Hook in Peter Pan there. In 2016 he starred as Abanazer in the Blue Genie production of Aladdin at The Whitley Bay Playhouse.
A keen motor racing enthusiast, Lynch raced a Marcos, TVR and then Mosler from 2002 to 2006 for the Eclipse Motorsport team in the British GT Championship, and came within a few laps of winning the 2003 British GT Championship at the last race of the season at Brands Hatch when he crashed into a spinning backmarker he was lapping. In 2005, he was involved with the 'Christians in Motorsport' team and competed in the British GT Championship Silverstone round. Lynch addressed a crowd of race fans at the team marquee about how his faith helps him in racing and in life generally. Lynch has also been involved in drifting, competing in the British Drift Championship for performance parts manufacturer & race team Team Japspeed. In 2008, he was involved in an accident with team-mate Danny Eyles while competing in the European Drift Championship round at Silverstone and, although he was not injured, both Nissan Skyline cars were written off. For the 2016 season of the British Drift Championship, Lynch and Team Japspeed debuted a brand new VH45 V8 powered Nissan 370Z, achieving a second-place finish on debut at Lydden Hill.
