In a rare interview given in November 1984, Mr Seamus Purcell remarked that he wished his children could get the education he received from dealing with small farmers at livestock markets. "I would have no fear of them going into any business if they had that background," he told The Sunday Press.
This week Mr Purcell (78) found himself in the High Court trying to stop National Irish Bank putting a receiver into Purcell Brothers on foot of £6.4 million (€8.1 million) debt run up through risky and ill-advised foreign exchange deals entered into by his eldest son Gerry (36).
Gerry Purcell's education at St Michael's School on Dublin's Ailesbury Road and at Villa Nova University in the US was, to say the least, very different from his father's. Seamus Purcell was the son of a cattle dealer from Birr, Co Offaly. He was driving cattle from five years of age and had been buying them since he was 14.
His son was more comfortable in the company of the other scions of Ireland's new super-rich rather than small farmers at midlands cattle markets. His name frequently appeared in the social diaries of various publications, often alongside those of other sons with famous fathers such as David Doyle - son of PV Doyle - and Tony O'Reilly junior.
The difference between Gerry Purcell and his contemporaries was that when they were given parts of the family empire to run, it was usually with the help of a strong minder. Mr Purcell was given a free hand with the whole family business. In 1992, most of the 50-year-old family business assets were in Purcell Brothers, the two directors of which were Gerry Purcell and his brother Patrick, who is based in Australia and looks after the company's interests there.
The shares were split three ways between the two brothers and their mother Philomena. Gerry Purcell, who was managing director, held 33,334 shares while his mother and brother held 33,333 each. Seamus Purcell was not registered as either a shareholder or a director.
Purcell Brothers' assets include two apartments in London - one on Sloane Square valued at £300,000 and another at Herbert Crescent valued at £700,000. There is also a £334,000 holiday home in Marbella and investments of £1.2 million.
The main assets are two farms, one of 285 acres at Newrath, Co Kilkenny, worth £3.6 million and another of 202 acres at Gracedieu, Co Waterford, valued at £2 million.
The High Court heard this week that what started out as a small amount of currency trading to manage the company's foreign liabilities, grew into a massive operation that dwarfed the underlying cattle business.
According to NIB, by mid-1999, the company had entered into foreign exchange positions totalling £77 million with NIB, Barclays Bank, Anglo Irish Bank and Gandon. Mr Purcell's office in Dublin was equipped in a manner more in keeping with a bank trading room than a livestock exporter.
Mr Purcell claims the bank encouraged him to get involved in bigger and bigger deals, despite knowing that speculative currency trading was not permitted by the company's articles of association. NIB claims all the transactions related to specific cattle shipments and that Mr Purcell is now trying to evade responsibility for his mistakes. Mr Purcell portrays himself as the somewhat naive victim of unscrupulous salesmen in the bank's treasury department.
Two weeks ago, he stepped down as managing director and his father took over running the business. Afraid that the bank would move to put in a liquidator they went to court and got an injunction pending the hearing of a case they planned to take against the bank.
It is not the first time that Seamus Purcell has faced ruin in his long career, having lost almost everything in 1962 after disease ravaged the Irish cattle herd.
Seamus Purcell rebuilt his fortune on the back of the live export trade to Egypt and Libya and then moved into the export of processed beef. By the mid-1980s, he was the second largest processor of beef in Ireland after Mr Larry Goodman.
A downturn in the meat business at that time led to him selling his plants to other processors and concentrating once again on the live cattle trade.
Mr Purcell retired and dropped out of public view, apart from a brief mention at the Moriarty tribunal.
The secret of his success, Mr Purcell told The Sunday Press in 1984, was "just working hard and sticking to the business we grew up with". It was a recipe his son Gerry would have done well to follow.
