Purcell O'Gorman (1820 – 24 November 1888) was an Irish nationalist politician and Member of Parliament in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, elected as a member of the Home Rule League to represent Waterford City. He was elected only once, in the 1874 United Kingdom general election, and served until 1880.
A scion of the landed gentry of Ireland,[1] but a Roman Catholic, O'Gorman was born in Kilkenny, the son of the successful barrister Nicholas Purcell O'Gorman QC,[2] who was the Secretary of Daniel O'Connell's Catholic Association.[3] He was educated at Clongowes, a Jesuit school, then at the age of sixteen matriculated at Trinity College Dublin. There he graduated BA in law in 1840.[2] On 3 February 1843 he was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant into the Ceylon Rifle Regiment. On 9 December 1845 he transferred to the 90th Foot (Perthshire Volunteers) as a Lieutenant and was promoted Captain on 2 April 1852. He served in the Crimean War from 1854 to 1855, and on 17 August 1855 sold his commission.[4]
O'Gorman served as one of Waterford's two Home Rule League members of parliament from February 1874 until 1880.[4] In March 1875, barely a year after his election to the House of Commons, he was caricatured by "Ape" (Carlo Pellegrini) in the London Vanity Fair magazine as "The Joker for Waterford".[5] [6]
O'Gorman died at Springfield, County Kilkenny, in November 1888.[4]
In 1853, O'Gorman married Sarah, a daughter of Thomas Mellor, of Ashton, Lancashire, and they had one son and two daughters.[1] They settled at Bellevue, in County Clare.[7] In 1860 their elder daughter, Frances Alice O'Gorman, married Captain E. J. Anderson, Royal Engineers. He was later a Brigadier-General.[8] In 1905 their younger daughter, Mary O'Gorman, became the second wife of Lt. Colonel Robert Thomas Carew, a former High Sheriff of County Waterford.[7]