Carew, James Laurence (1853–1903), politician and newspaper proprietor, was the youngest son of Laurence Carew of Kildangan, Co. Meath, and his wife Anne, only daughter of Garrett Robinson of Kilrainy, Co. Kildare. Educated at Tullabeg College, Clongowes, and TCD (BA 1873), he entered the Middle Temple (1874) and was called to the English bar in 1878. He practised law until his election (1885) as nationalist MP for Kildare North. He immediately became party whip and was reelected unopposed in 1886. For a brief period in 1889 he was jailed in Kilkenny under the 1887 crimes act. During the split of 1890–91 he remained loyal to Charles Stewart Parnell (qv) and as a result lost his seat in the 1892 election. He narrowly failed to regain it in 1895, but was returned uncontested for the Dublin constituency of College Green in 1896. He lost this seat in 1900, but at the same election became MP for Meath South in controversial circumstances. The sitting member, John Parnell (qv), brother of C. S. Parnell, expected to be returned unopposed and so had not submitted a deposit with his nomination papers. At the last moment friends of Carew (without his knowledge, he later claimed) submitted nomination papers and a deposit. Parnell, unable to raise a deposit in time, was disqualified, leaving Carew unopposed. An unobtrusive parliamentary career ended with his death, at which time he was high sheriff of Co. Kildare.
Outside parliament he promoted the nationalist cause through newspapers. In 1886 he purchased the Naas-based Leinster Leader for £1,100. For a time he was a director of the Irish Press Agency, an organisation founded in London to argue the nationalist case in England, and was also part-owner and managing director of the Irish Daily Independent. He died 31 August 1903 while on holidays in Switzerland, leaving an estate of £10,292. He married (1896) Helen, widow of Sir Hugh Coleridge-Kennard of the Grenadier Guards. They had no children; his wife had a son by her previous marriage, of whom her former in-laws tried unsuccessfully to gain custody, alleging that Carew was almost a Fenian and that the boy was being brought up a catholic.