William Paulet Carey

They published the Declaration of the Catholic Society of Dublin to promote unanimity among Irishmen and remove religious prejudices, written by McKenna, demanding total repeal of the penal laws as a matter of right.

With his brother James, Carey began to publish Rights of Irishman, or National Evening Star, a paper that ran to 1795 carrying the United Irish message of a democratic union of "Catholic, Protestant and Dissenter".

[12] In November 1792 Carey reprinted from the United Irishmen's Northern Star, published in Belfast, a paragraph on local rejoicing at the outcome of the Battle of Valmy, and Arthur Wolfe warned him of a prosecution for seditious libel.

[1] This move followed exhaustive attempts by Carey to have the Society stand bail for him (so that he could leave without requiring his friends to pay the surety).

Durey argues that Carey accurately analysed the use of the existing funds, to support leaders of higher social rank than he had.

[16] A government agent working undercover in the Society convinced William to testify against Drennan with a generous offer of compensation.

[18][19] Having published his side of the story in late 1794, Carey spent some time in Philadelphia in 1795, and then came back to Dublin to run a government-subsidised paper, the General Evening Post (later the Volunteer Packet).

Carey took part in the yeomanry volunteer force, and there ran into trouble, thought to be inciting the lower ranks against the officers.

[1] A dealer in pictures, prints, and other works of art, he was one of the main agents used by John Leicester, 5th Baronet in the formation of his collection.

[4] Carey produced some satirical and political engravings for the 1784 British general election, working with William Holland of Drury Lane.

[30] In 1787 he turned to Ireland and the matter of religion, Arthur O'Leary and William Campbell, who had joined sides in controversy with Richard Woodward.

[5][31] In 1789 he collected his political verse in The Nettle, aimed at the Marquess of Buckingham, and published it under the pseudonym "Scriblerus Murtough O'Pindar"[32][33] He did the copperplates in Geoffrey Gambado's (Henry William Bunbury's) Annals of Horsemanship (Dublin, 1792).

[1] One of his daughters, Elizabeth Sheridan Carey, wrote a volume of poems called Ivy Leaves, privately printed in 1837.