| Daniel Rayner O'Connor Lysaght | |
| Birth Name: | Daniel Rayner Connor Lysaght |
| Birth Date: | 30 January 1941 |
| Birth Place: | Llanishen, Wales |
| Death Place: | Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, Ireland |
| Nationality: | Irish |
| Alma Mater: | Trinity College Dublin |
| Occupation: | Historian and writer |
| Organisation: | Revolutionary Marxist Group (Ireland) Fourth International (post-reunification) |
| Known For: | Marxism |
| Party: | National Progressive Democrats |
| Movement: | Trotskyism |
| Family: | Feargus O'Connor |
Daniel Rayner O'Connor Lysaght, informally known as Rayner, (30 January 1941 – 2 July 2022) was a Welsh-born Irish revolutionary Marxist, a historian and an author.
Born in Llanishen in 1941, a descendant of Feargus O'Connor, Lysaght spent his adult life in Dublin after studying at Trinity College.
He co-founded the Revolutionary Marxist Group and co-lead the Red Mole journal.
He died in Dublin in 2022.
Lysaght was born in Llanishen,[1] on January 30, 1941 to a surgeon father Arthur Lysaght and Jacqueline Lysaght (née Heard) from Wales and had a brother William and a sister Priscilla Stewart.[2]
He was a descendant of Feargus O'Connor the radical Irish chartist. While his family spelled their name Conner, he adapted it to O'Connor as a tribute to Feargus O'Connor.[3]
Lysaght studied at Trinity College Dublin where he developed a reputation as a left-wing activist.
Lysaght was an influential historian[4] a Trotskyist, and a member of the National Progressive Democrats. He was a writer, and his publications included a pamphlet on the Limerick Soviet the de facto governing body that ruled Limerick for two weeks in 1919.
He co-founded the Revolutionary Marxist Group, the Irish section of the Fourth International later becoming a member of the People's Democracy in 1974 when the groups merged. With Peter Graham, Lysaght organised the Irish Workers Group and the British International Marxist Group to join the Fourth International. They published the Red Mole journal until Graham's murder in 1971.[5]
He lived on Clanawley Road in Killester, Dublin.[6]
Lysaght died on the 2 July 2022 in Beaumont Hospital, Dublin His funeral was held at the Glasnevin Crematorium, with small numbers in attendance due to the COVID-19 pandemic.