Purcell, Nicholas (c.1651–1723), Jacobite soldier and politician, was the only son and heir of James Purcell (d. 1652), owner of extensive lands and titular baron, of Loughmoe (or Loughmore), near Templemore, Co. Tipperary, and his wife, Elizabeth Purcell (née Butler; d. 1675), a sister of the 1st duke of Ormond (qv); as a widow, Elizabeth was among ‘innocent papists’ transplanted to Connacht under the commonwealth. James and Elizabeth also had four daughters. In 1661 Nicholas Purcell was made a ward of his uncle, Ormond, who put Colonel John Fitzpatrick (qv) in the Purcell estates as a tenant in May 1662. Fitzpatrick married Purcell's widowed mother before March 1663, when Nicholas had the estates of his grandfather and father restored to him. Ormond's relatives notoriously fared better than most catholics in the restoration land settlement, and Purcell appears to have had restored to him practically all the lands the family had owned before 1641.
In March 1686 Purcell became captain lieutenant in the earl of Ardglass's regiment of horse. He was appointed in May 1686 to the Irish privy council, and sat for Co. Tipperary in the Irish parliament summoned by King James II (qv) in 1689. He was one of the leaders of the army faction around Patrick Sarsfield (qv) which opposed the leadership of Tyrconnell (qv). By 1689 he was colonel of his own regiment of dragoons, which fought at Derry, the Boyne, and Aughrim. With Henry Luttrell (qv) and Simon Luttrell (qv) he undertook a mission to France in October to November 1690 to James II. He was one of the negotiators and signatories of the articles of Limerick, and afterwards was said to have encouraged Irish soldiers to enlist for William III (qv) rather than for Louis XIV. He appears in a list of 1693, apparently prepared by his stepfather John Fitzpatrick, of influential catholics who, it was said, would help to keep the peace in Ireland if given government pensions.
He married, probably after 1690, Eliza (d. 1737), a daughter of Valentine Browne (qv), 1st Viscount Kenmare, and his wife, Jane Browne (née Plunkett). He petitioned for the reversal of his father-in-law's outlawry (in order to secure his wife's portion) during the 1690s, when the English government was notably more favourably disposed to him than were its representatives in Dublin castle. He appears to have lived a good deal in England during the later 1690s, and in 1695 and 1697 he appeared, with figures such as Henry Luttrell and Henry Oxburgh (qv), among the Irish catholics in London lobbying the English privy council on Irish bills affecting them.
In August 1703 the English government invited the earl of Limerick (qv) to enter the service of Portugal (which had just entered the Grand Alliance), with a commission from the Portuguese king but to be paid by England. In November 1703 Purcell was among the Irish officers who, with Limerick and Purcell's brother-in-law, the 2nd Viscount Kenmare (qv), kissed hands with Queen Anne before going to Portugal. Purcell subsequently returned to live in Ireland, and his abode is given as Loughmore in privy council proclamations of 1705 and 1714 licensing catholics to bear arms. He died aged seventy-one, and was buried at Loughmoe. The date of death on his tombstone inscription – 4 March 1722 – should probably be read in the old style, and is therefore 4 March 1723 according to the modern calendar. Of his children little is known: he referred in a petition of 1700 to a numerous family, and he was survived by at least one daughter but had no male heir.
During the 1690s Purcell intermittently came under official suspicion of Jacobite plotting. On the whole, however, he is representative of those propertied and generally Old English Jacobite officers of moderate views who, after defeat, chose accommodation with the new regime rather than exile and service in the armies of its enemies.