Sir Vere Hunt, 1st Baronet of Currah (1761 – 11 August 1818) was an Irish politician, landowner and businessman. He is chiefly remembered for founding the village of New Birmingham in County Tipperary, for his ill-advised purchase of the island of Lundy, and for his entertaining diary. He was a colourful character, who was noted for his heavy drinking and gambling, but also for his intellectual interests, and his stern criticism of his own class.

Overview

Sir Vere Hunt, 1st Baronet of Currah (1761 – 11 August 1818) was an Irish politician, landowner and businessman. He is chiefly remembered for founding the village of New Birmingham in County Tipperary, for his ill-advised purchase of the island of Lundy, and for his entertaining diary. He was a colourful character, who was noted for his heavy drinking and gambling, but also for his intellectual interests, and his stern criticism of his own class. Family He was the son of Vere Hunt of Curragh, County Limerick and Glengoole, County Tipperary, by his second wife, Anne Browne, daughter of Edmund Browne of New Grove, County Clare and his wife Jane Westropp, and sister of Montfort Browne, who was Lieutenant Governor of West Florida and then Governor of the Bahamas. His father was the eldest son of the Reverend Vere Hunt (died 1759), and his wife Constantia Piers, granddaughter of Sir Henry Piers, 1st Baronet. He was a descendant of the Earls of Oxford through Jane de Vere, a granddaughter of the 15th Earl, who married Henry Hunt in 1572. His own son changed the family name to de Vere. Sir Vere's great-great-grandfather, yet another Vere Hunt, was an army officer who served with Oliver Cromwell and who settled in Ireland in 1657. The Hunt/de Vere family estate, which they owned for 300 years (1657–1957), including the period of the de Vere Baronetcy of Curragh, is the present day Curraghchase Forest Park, in County Limerick.

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