James Laurence Carew

Who was James Laurence Carew?

James Laurence Carew was an Irish nationalist politician and Member of Parliament in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom. A member of the Irish Parliamentary Party and later a Parnellite, he was MP 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, Co Westmeath 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, 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.