High Court suspends Macroom solicitor's practising certificate until 31 December

The High Court has suspended the practising certificate of Michael G. Purcell, a solicitor and partner in the firm of Michael Purcell & Son LLP, 33 Main Street, Macroom, County Cork, until the end of the current practice year on 31 December 2026. The order was made on 19 October 2026 on the application of the Law Society of Ireland under the Solicitors Acts 1954-2015, and is published in Iris Oifigiúil No. 85 of 23 October 2026 under the court reference H SA 2026 78.

The notice is headed “In the Matter of Michael G. Purcell, a Solicitor, a Partner in the Firm of Michael Purcell & Son LLP, 33 Main Street, Macroom, County Cork, and in the Matter of the Solicitors Acts 1954-2015”. It names the Law Society of Ireland as applicant and the solicitor as respondent, and is signed by Niall Connors, Registrar of Solicitors at the Law Society of Ireland, and dated 20 October 2026 — the day after the order was made.

What the order provides

The notice sets out the terms of the High Court order in two numbered limbs:

• That the respondent’s current practising certificate be suspended until the end of the current practice year, being 31 December 2026.
• That the applicant be directed not to issue a practising certificate to the respondent during any subsequent practice year until such time as the President of the High Court thinks fit.

The second limb carries the sanction beyond the current year. The certificate does not revive automatically when the 2026 practice year closes; any future certificate depends on the view of the President of the High Court. The published notice records the terms of the order only and does not set out the grounds on which the Law Society of Ireland applied, nor any findings of the court.

Parties, court and citation

The essential details of the notice are:

• Court: The High Court.
• Reference: H SA 2026 78.
• Applicant: Law Society of Ireland.
• Respondent: Michael G. Purcell, solicitor, partner in Michael Purcell & Son LLP, 33 Main Street, Macroom, County Cork.
• Statutes invoked: the Solicitors Acts 1954-2015.
• Order made: 19 October 2026.
• Notice signed and dated: Niall Connors, Registrar of Solicitors, 20 October 2026.
• Publication: Iris Oifigiúil No. 85, 23 October 2026.

Notices of this kind are the route by which orders affecting a solicitor’s entitlement to practise are given public effect, appearing among the statutory and court notices in the gazette rather than in a separate disciplinary bulletin.

A public sanction on a named practitioner

Sanctions against named solicitors are an uncommon sight in the notices pages, which in the same issue are dominated by company windings-up, liquidators’ appointments and creditors’ deadlines. The same gazette carried a comparable entry earlier in the month: Iris Oifigiúil of 6 October 2026 recorded, under reference H SA 2026 86, that Philip Meagher, a solicitor practising as Midland Legal Solicitors at Fitzmaurice House, Bank Place, Portlaoise, Co. Laois, had been suspended from practice and prohibited from holding himself out as a solicitor by order of 1 October 2026, with a further direction that no bank make payments out of his client account without leave of the court.

The Law Society of Ireland appears in both notices as applicant, acting through its Registrar of Solicitors, which is the office that also signs the published record of the order.

For clients, counterparties and courts dealing with the Macroom firm, the immediate effect is that the named solicitor holds no current practising certificate for the remainder of 2026, and that the certificate cannot be restored in a later practice year without the approval of the President of the High Court. Publication in the official gazette puts that position on the public record, allowing anyone checking the standing of the practice to verify it against the court’s own order rather than relying on second-hand account.

Source: Iris Oifigiúil, No. 85, 23 October 2026, section I (official reference: H SA 2026 78).