Archer, Patrick (d. 1686), merchant, was fifth and youngest son of Walter Archer and Elizabeth, daughter of Henry Shee, from two of the leading families in the city of Kilkenny. Walter Archer served as mayor of Kilkenny in 1610; Patrick's older brother Henry sat as MP for the city in the 1640 parliament. Patrick entered the business world, becoming a merchant banker, with extensive property in the south-east. He married a daughter of Andrew Dillon of Riverstown, acquiring considerable land in Co. Meath in the process. Archer's most important client was James Butler (qv), 12th earl of Ormond, and their relationship endured throughout the turbulent decades that followed. At the outbreak of the rebellion in October 1641, both Patrick and Henry supported the catholic opposition to the Dublin administration, and a local protestant later accused the two brothers of using a church building in Kilkenny to manufacture gunpowder for the rebels. None the less, Archer maintained contact with all sides in the ensuing war. He travelled regularly between Dublin and Kilkenny, lending money to both the confederate supreme council and Ormond, the royalist lord lieutenant. In 1644 he provided ships and supplies at a cost of over £4,000 for the expedition of Alasdair MacColla MacDonnell (qv) to Scotland. Archer also acted as confederate purveyor of gunpowder, a role he later performed for Ormond, after the signing of the peace treaty between the confederates and royalists in January 1649.
With the fall of Kilkenny and Waterford to the Cromwellians in 1650, Archer's business empire collapsed and he followed the royalist leadership into Connacht. At the end of 1651 Donough MacCarthy (qv), 2nd Viscount Muskerry, sent him to Flanders to obtain supplies, and to ascertain the duke of Lorraine's intentions towards Ireland. Muskerry also requested that he make preparations in case the catholic leaders were forced to flee to the Continent. Archer spent the remainder of the 1650s in Brussels and Amsterdam, as merchant by commission to Charles II and a member of the royal household. In 1656 the king promised to repay £10,000 owed to Archer out of the customs of the ports of Ross and Waterford. After the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, Archer spent a number of years in London attempting to retrieve his property and money, with limited success despite repeated interventions by the king on his behalf. He was among those catholics who signed the remonstrance of loyalty to Charles II in 1666, before returning to Ireland the following year to revive his business interests. In 1668 Archer was involved in a dispute with John Preston, MP for Navan (1661–6), over his estates in Co. Meath, with the courts eventually ruling in Archer's favour. He maintained close contact with Ormond throughout this period and helped oversee repairs to the roof of Kilkenny castle in 1669. Little is known of his final years, and he died on his Riverstown estate in 1686.