Morres, Hervey Redmond (c.1743–97), politician and 2nd Viscount Mountmorres , was first son and heir of Hervey Morres (c.1707–1766), MP for Irishtown, Co. Kilkenny (1752–3), and later 1st Viscount Mountmorres, and his first wife, Letitia (née Ponsonby). Educated privately, he entered Christ Church, Oxford, in 1763, graduating MA (1766). After the death of his father he succeeded as 2nd Viscount Mountmorres of Castlemorres, Co. Kilkenny, and took his seat in the house of lords on 20 October 1767. A nephew of John Ponsonby (qv), the former speaker of the Irish house of commons (1756–71), he was a committed opponent of the government in parliament. From the beginning he obstructed the Castle as best he could, and was a firm ally of Lord Charlemont (qv). Industrious and intrepid, he pressed continuously for movement on some of his favourite subjects in parliament; these included bills on judges, mortgages, and the high charge for private bills. A vain individual, who loved talking, he once circulated copies of a forthcoming house of lords speech to the newspapers with descriptions added of ‘cheering’, ‘clapping’, and ‘loud applause’. This was published the next day to much embarrassment: the debate had been postponed and the speech had not been made. However, this did not inhibit him from sending his speeches to the newspapers, a practice he continued until the 1780s.
Morres stood unsuccessfully for election as MP for Westminster in the British house of commons in 1774. After this he spent some time in France, and was absent from parliament during the tumultuous period of 1780–83. Returning to the lords in 1784, his heart was no longer in parliamentary matters and he became increasingly withdrawn and disillusioned. Breaking with the opposition, he supported the government during the regency crisis of 1788–9. His final action in parliament was in 1791, when he piloted a bill for encouraging the cultivation and preservation of trees and shrubs. After this he retired from politics and moved to London, where he lived for the remainder of his life. Turning to writing, he published The history of the principal transactions of the Irish parliament from the year 1634 to 1666 (2 vols, 1792) and a comedy, The prodigal (1794), as well as numerous essays and tracts.
He died 17 or 18 August 1797 by committing suicide at his home at York St., St James's Square, London, having shot himself through the head. He did not marry. It was believed that he had gone insane gradually during the 1790s. Some speculated that it was as a result of a failed love affair twenty years previously, but this seems unlikely: it was reported that Morres judged potential brides on the basis of their income rather than any other consideration. Others believed that he was distraught about the state of Ireland. As a parliamentarian he was committed to radical principles and was very concerned with the dignity and role of parliament, especially his beloved upper chamber. Both enemies and friends saw him as ‘eccentric, rebellious, [and] a wrong-headed Irish patriot, almost an outsider’ (Englefield, x). Jonah Barrington (qv) knew him well and recorded that he was ‘a clever and well informed, but eccentric man – one of the most ostentatious and at the same time parsimonious beings in the world. He considered himself by far the greatest orator and politician in Europe’ (Personal sketches, i, 118).