Carney, Francis (‘Frank’) (1896–1932), soldier and politician, was born 25 April 1896 in Abbey Street, Enniskillen, Co. Fermanagh, son of Edward Carney, fisherman, and Eliza Carney (née McCaffrey). Details of his education are not available. At the outbreak of the first world war (August 1914) both he and his brother James enlisted in the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers. While his brother, a sergeant in the regiment's 1st battalion, was killed in action in Gallipoli (27 December 1915), Frank Carney (who also attained the rank of sergeant) suffered from chronic bronchitis and asthma, and consequently was assigned to home service in Basingstoke, Hampshire, and was discharged on medical grounds in January 1916. Increasingly pro-nationalist and anti-war in opinion, after the Easter rising and subsequent executions he offered his services to the Irish Volunteers, for whom he drew on his military experience by training recruits. The widely reported account that he presented himself to the Enniskillen Volunteers company during Easter Week while still in active British military service – uniformed, armed, and with full equipment – appears to be apocryphal. Between leaving the British army and assuming full-time active Irish Republican Army (IRA) service in 1919, he worked in Enniskillen as a self-employed fisherman and importer–exporter, and also taught at the Presentation Brothers' college. Informing British military authorities of his intent to take arms against them, he refused to accept his army pension for the duration of the troubles.
Commanding the IRA Fermanagh Brigade (1918–21), during the war of independence he operated widely in counties Fermanagh and Tyrone, and frequently in Co. Donegal, the latter being a region more sympathetic to armed republican activity. Notable engagements included raids on Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) barracks in Lisbellew and Belleek, Co. Fermanagh, and on Portnoo coastguard station, Co. Donegal. During 1920 he was imprisoned for a time in Belfast. He was also a Sinn Féin member of Enniskillen urban council. Elected for the Irish Labour party to Enniskillen urban council (January 1920), Carney proposed an anti-partition resolution that was passed by the eleven to ten majority of nationalist, Sinn Féin and labour councillors (March 1920). In time, questions arose over whether his primary allegiance was to the labour or republican movement.
On reorganisation of the Ulster commands, he was appointed commanding officer (CO) of the newly formed IRA 1st Northern Division, covering Derry city and Co. Donegal. His brief tenure (March–May 1921) was dominated by an acrimonious controversy between officers of the Derry city battalion and their mercurial brigade commander, Peadar O'Donnell (qv), who was new to the IRA from a controversial trade-union background. Although Carney, newly based in Derry city, suspended O'Donnell from his command, after an investigation the IRA's Dublin General Headquarters (GHQ) reinstated O'Donnell and suspended Carney over his role in the affair. A breakdown in communication and security attending the dispute probably contributed to the arrest of Carney and three staff officers. While interned in Ballykinlar camp, Co. Down (May–December 1921), he complied with a request that he resign from Enniskillen urban council for non-attendance. A special council meeting, attended by the ten unionist councillors and nine others (November 1921), departed from custom and voted to co-opt a unionist rather than a labourite to the vacant seat, thereby securing a unionist majority on the body. Supporting the Anglo–Irish Treaty, Carney served as chief supplies officer in the provisional government army (February–June 1922), stationed in Dublin successively at Beggars Bush and Portobello barracks. He resigned his commission after the attack on the anti-Treaty garrison in the Four Courts and took no part in the subsequent civil war.
Afflicted by chronically poor health, his respiratory ailments and vertigo exacerbated by the rigours of guerrilla warfare and incarceration, he seems to have been unemployed for the next several years. His application for a military disability pension was refused on the grounds of insufficient evidence that his condition was caused by circumstances of his IRA service (1928). He married (1922) Nora McGuinness, a republican activist; they had three sons and three daughters, and resided in Derry city at 17 Westland Terrace. Standing for Dáil Éireann at the request of Éamon de Valera (qv), he was elected Fianna Fáil TD for Donegal (1927–32) in the June 1927 election, taking a second seat for the party behind Neil Blaney (qv) (1889–1948). He twice held the seat, with a substantial numerical and proportional increase in his vote in the September 1927 election, and in 1932 despite a reduction in first-preference votes amid a larger field of Fianna Fáil contenders that yielded the party a third Donegal seat. Among the most able backbenchers in the house, he spoke regularly on a diversity of issues, notable for idiosyncratic turns of phrase and vigour in debate. While forthright in republican conviction, he worked energetically in the interests of former British servicemen. Devoid of political rancour, he attracted respect and friendships among all parties and shades of opinion. He died suddenly 19 October 1932 in his Dublin lodgings at 143 Baggot Street, hours before the convening of the autumn dáil session. His widow’s claim to an army pension in relation to his premature death was denied, notwithstanding a supporting document signed by thirty parliamentarians (1933). She was awarded a Cumann na mBan pension in 1941.