Hungry Tree, Remarkable tree in King's Inns, Dublin, Ireland

Hungry Tree is a plane tree on the grounds of King's Inns in Dublin. The trunk measures roughly three meters around and reaches a height of about 21 meters, with the wood growing around a cast iron bench.

The grounds belong to King's Inns, a legal academy founded in 1541 under Henry VIII. The bench dates from the 1800s, when cast iron furniture was common in public gardens.

Locals know the tree for its shape, which slowly wraps around an old park bench from the 1800s and grows it into the bark. The name refers to how the trunk swallows the metal, as if eating it.

The tree stands just inside the south gate of the King's Inns grounds on Constitution Hill; the grounds are open daily from 7 a.m. to 7.30 p.m. The bench is set into the trunk at ground level, so look at the base of the tree rather than the crown.

In 2017 Green Party councillor Ciarán Cuffe asked the Dublin Central Area Committee to grant the tree a tree preservation order; it was refused because the tree stands within the curtilage of protected buildings. Listing the bench itself was also rejected, since the council could then have been required to remove the tree to save the bench.