Carney, Sir Richard (d. 1692?), herald and painter, is said by Strickland to have been the son of Edward Carney, a Dublin tailor, and to have been appointed a herald in 1652 and principal herald of arms in Ireland in 1655. He was certainly the Richard Carney who was appointed Athlone herald or pursuivant in February 1661, an office he shared with his son Richard (1658?–1698) from 1672 until May 1683, when he surrendered it for the superior office of Ulster king of arms. He was knighted in April 1684. Carney was apparently also a portrait painter. After the foundation by charter of the Cutlers’ and Painter Stainers’ Guild (the guild of St Luke) in 1671, he was one of its first two wardens and in 1686 he was its master. Sir Richard, whose possession of his office was interrupted by James II's (qv) appointee, James Terry (d. 1725), apparently died in 1692. His wife was Lettice, daughter of Thomas Tallis. Richard Carney junior was Athlone herald jointly with his own son, also Richard (d. 1700?), from 1683 until 1692, when he became Ulster king of arms until his own death. Sir Richard's daughter Lettice married a Hugh Ridgate and was mother of Lettice Ridgate, the first wife of William Hawkins (1670–1736), Ulster king of arms from 1698 to 1736.
Sources
Burke, LGI (1912), 304; Strickland, i, 157–8; T. Blake Butler, ‘The officers of arms in Ireland’, Irish Genealogist, ii, no. 1 (1943), 10–12, 44