Author: Lysaght, Edward
Biography:
LYSAGHT, Edward (1763-1809: DIB)
He was the only son of John Lysaght of Brickhill, County Clare, and his wife Jane Eyre Dalton. He was educated at the Rev. Patrick Hare’s school in Cashel, County Tipperary, and, from 1779, at Trinity College Dublin. He earned his BA in 1782 and entered the Middle Temple, London. In 1784 he served as counsel for Lord Hood in his parliamentary contest with Charles James Fox. He received his MA from St. Edmund Hall, Oxford, in 1788 and was called to both the English and the Irish bar in the same year. He married Elizabeth Hannah (surname unknown) in about 1786. They had two daughters born in London: Elizabeth in 1788 and Jane Eyre in 1790. The family returned to Ireland where Lysaght practised on the Munster circuit; later he was a commissioner in bankruptcy. In 1808 he was made a police magistrate in Dublin. He was a patriot who supported Henry Grattan (a subscriber to his book) and opposed the 1800 Act of Union. Known as a wit, satirist, and convivial companion, “Ned Lysaght” managed his finances poorly and his one book of verse was published posthumously to benefit his widow and daughters. Both ODNB and DIB date his death as 1810 but it was reported in the Belfast Monthly Magazine in Mar. 1809. His wife also received funds collected for her benefit by the Irish bar and a civil list pension after his death; she died in County Tyrone in 1839. (DIB 4 June 2021; ODNB 4 June 2021; ancestry.co.uk 4 June 2021; A Catalogue of Graduates who have Proceeded to Degrees in the University of Dublin [1869]; Belfast Commercial Chronicle 30 July 1808; Belfast Monthly Magazine Mar. 1809; Dublin Weekly Register 17 Oct. 1829; Belfast Newsletter 19 Nov. 1839) SR