James Laurence Carew

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James Laurence Carew (1853–August 31, 1903) was an Irish nationalist politician and MP. in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and member of the Irish Parliamentary Party and later Parnellite Member of Parliament for North Kildare from 1885 to 1892, for Dublin College Green 1896-1900 and for South Meath from 1900 until his death in 1903.

Youngest son of Laurence Carew of Kildangan, Kinnegad, (then Co. Meath), Co Westmeath^[1] and Anne, older daughter of Garrett Robinson of Kilrainy, Co. Kildare, he was educated at the Jesuit St Stanislaus' and Clongowes Wood Colleges and at Trinity College, Dublin, where he graduated in 1873. He was called to the Bar at Lincoln’s Inn, London, in July 1874,^[2] and then practised as an equity draftsman and conveyancer.

He was elected to Parliament for North Kildare in the Irish Parliamentary Party landslide in the 1885 general election by a large majority over the Conservative candidate, and returned unopposed in the election of the following year. He assisted J. J. Clancy in running the Irish Press Agency in London. During the Land War, in February 1889, he was prosecuted for a speech calling for the boycott of the Earl of Drogheda. Following his arrest, in Perthshire, Scotland, while campaigning in support of a Liberal by-election candidate, he was sentenced to four months’ imprisonment and confined in Kilkenny, and later Kilmainham Gaols.

When the Irish Parliamentary Party split in December 1890 over the leadership of Charles Stewart Parnell, Carew supported the latter. He then acted as one of the whips of the Parnellite parliamentary party. In the subsequent bitter general election of 1892, he was defeated by an Anti-Parnellite by 56 to 44 per cent. He contested North Kildare again in 1895 and was defeated by the slightly smaller margin of 53 to 47 percent. The following year the opportunity to return to the House of Commons arose when his fellow Parnellite Dr J. E. Kenny resigned the strongly Parnellite seat of Dublin College Green. Carew was selected and returned unopposed.

In 1896, he married Helen,^[3] widow of Hugh Coleridge Kennard of the Grenadier Guards. Later in this parliamentary term, Carew came under attack in the Irish Nationalist movement for attending royal functions. He also became associated with the Healyite faction in the House of Commons. Consequently, in 1900, he was opposed in Dublin College Green by a new Nationalist candidate, Joseph Patrick Nannetti. Although the exact circumstances appear to be disputed, he was additionally nominated for his native seat of South Meath, and elected unopposed because the sitting member John Howard Parnell, expecting no opposition, omitted to submit the fees necessary for nomination in a contested election. Carew subsequently stated in a letter to the press that his return at South Meath was secured without his knowledge or consent, and offered to resign in favour of Parnell or any other candidate nominated by the constituency. However he was defeated at College Green and did not resign South Meath.

At the subsequent National Convention of the United Irish League, Carew was excluded from the Irish Parliamentary Party, along with Timothy Healy. Whereas Healy was later reconciled, temporarily, with the IPP, Carew did not live long enough for this to occur. He died suddenly three years later, relatively young, while on holiday at St Moritz.

[edit] Footnotes

1. ^ Kinnegad is now in Co. Westmeath. But there have been boundary changes since 1853.
2. ^ The Times, 27 November 1885, states July 1874 while the later Times 5 July 1892 mentions 1878. The former seems more likely.
3. ^ 1901 Census return for 54 Hans Place, Chelsea

[edit] Sources

• Freeman’s Journal, 2 October 1886, 12 December 1900, 1 September 1903
• The Times (London), 27 November 1885, 22 February and 5 March 1889, 5 July 1892, 14 July and 4 October 1900
• Brian M. Walker (ed.), Parliamentary Election Results in Ireland, 1801-1922, Dublin, Royal Irish Academy, 1978
• Who Was Who, 1897-1916