Vereker, Charles (1768–1842), 2nd Viscount Gort , naval and militia officer, and MP, was the second son of Thomas Vereker of Roxborough, Limerick, and his wife Juliana, sister of John Prendergast Smyth, 1st Viscount Gort. His Vereker ancestry was Flemish but the family was long established in the Limerick area. Charles entered the Royal Navy in 1782 aged 14, serving on the Alexander as a midshipman during the relief of the siege of Gibraltar in October of that year. His courage against the Spanish was commended by the squadron commander, Lord Howe. In August 1785 he transferred to the army, purchasing a commission in the 1st or Royal regiment of foot (later the Royal Scots regiment), and in 1793 was appointed lieutenant-colonel of the Limerick city militia. In a local by-election of 1794 he was elected MP for the borough of Limerick; he was reelected in 1797, and held his seat until the dissolution of 1800.
Meanwhile, in the summer of 1798, he was sent with his regiment to command the mixed regular, militia, and yeomanry forces defending Sligo against the insurgent United Irishmen in the north-west. In response to the rapid advance of a French invasion force from Killala, Co. Mayo, led by Gen. Joseph Humbert (qv), Vereker marched out (5 September) to stop them at the village of Collooney, five miles (8 km) from Sligo town, on the west bank of the Owenmore river at the foot of the Ox mountains. Overlooked by the rock of Carrignagat, a short distance north along the road from Ballisodare, Collooney's narrow position enabled Vereker to prevent Humbert's prospective capture of Sligo and his opportunity of making contact with United Irish elements in Ulster. Although Vereker had surprised the French at Collooney, he failed to hold the upper ground at Carrignagat which might have won him the battle. After more than an hour of combat, in which most of the killed and wounded were French, Vereker's outflanked forces withdrew to Sligo, leaving behind their artillery as well as their captured and wounded men, who were well treated by the enemy and subsequently released. Vereker then evacuated the Sligo garrison to Ballyshannon, Co. Donegal, and was fortunate that the French-led force diverted south-east through Co. Leitrim, rather than risk entering Sligo, and eventually surrendered at Ballinamuck, Co. Longford (8 September).
Although criticised by the viceroy and commander-in-chief, Lord Cornwallis (qv), for engaging the French so hastily, he was nonetheless showered with honours for his tenacious defence of Collooney, which some hyperbolic speeches compared to the Spartans’ defence of Thermopylae. (Even Humbert, in defeat, declared him the best opponent he had faced.) Sligo's high sheriff and grand jury presented him with addresses, Dublin conferred its freedom on him, and Limerick corporation commissioned a special sword and struck medals for the city militia; it even named Collooney St. (later Wolfe Tone St.) in memory of the event. At Collooney itself, the only memorial, erected in 1898 at ‘Teeling's Rock’, commemorates his United Irish opponent, Bartholomew Teeling (qv).
Vereker opposed the act of union (1800), and thereby forfeited his militia command. Although he lost his seat as MP for Limerick borough in 1800, he was reelected in 1802 and continued to represent his constituency at Westminster as an independent-minded conservative until 1817. He became governor of Limerick (1802), treasury commissioner (1807), constable of Limerick Castle (1809–42), and governor of Co. Galway (1814–31). He became a representative Irish peer in 1823 but his initial elevation to the peerage (23 May 1817), as 2nd Viscount Gort, resulted from the death of his unmarried maternal uncle John Prendergast Smyth. Smyth had long anticipated the event by granting him property adjoining his Lough Cutra estate near Gort, Co. Galway, which Vereker duly inherited.
Vereker married first (7 November 1789) Jane, daughter of Ralph Westropp of Attyflynn, Co. Limerick and widow of William Stamer of Carnelly, Co. Clare. They had one son, John Prendergast, and three daughters, Julia, Jane, and Georgina. After his wife's death (19 February 1798) he remained a widower until 5 March 1810, when he married Elizabeth, daughter of John Palliser of Derryluskan, Co. Tipperary. They had one son, Charles, and a daughter, Elizabeth, who died young. Vereker's personal courage was renowned, whether in facing the French or opposing political enemies in parliament. His radical sense of justice could be alarmingly unpredictable: he once attacked another officer with his sword for flogging a man in Limerick. Although he had opposed catholic relief bills in the commons and generally supported conservative legislation, he voted in favour of catholic emancipation (1829). He died 11 November 1842 in Dublin, and was succeeded by his son John Prendergast Vereker (1790–1865), 3rd Viscount Gort. His most distinguished descendant was John Vereker (1886–1946), 6th Viscount Gort, who in 1937 became the youngest ever British chief of the imperial general staff.