William Paulet Carey (1759 – 21 May 1839) was an Irish art critic and publicist, known also as an engraver and dealer. In 1792 he joined the Society of United Irishmen in Dublin, but feeling unsupported as he himself faced charges of sedition, in 1794 he testified in the government case against the United Irishman William Drennan. In England, he spent half a century promoting British art, most of his writings being distributed gratuitously.

Carey was born into an Irish Catholic family in Dublin, the brother of John Carey and Mathew Carey. His father Christopher Carey was a baker and newspaper owner. Of two other brothers, James became a newspaper editor in Philadelphia.

Carey studied drawing at the Royal Dublin Society's school. He began life as a painter and then became an engraver. After an accident to his eyes he had to abandon his career in art. He edited in Dublin the Sentimental and Masonic Magazine (1792–95).

Stirred by news of revolution and reform in France and dissatisfied with the moderation of the established Catholic Committee, in October 1791, with some forty like-minded radicals, Carey helped form the Catholic Society with Theobald McKenna as their secretary. 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. The declaration caused a split in the Catholic Committee. Led by Lord Kenmare, The more conservative and clerical members publicly withdrew.

Although a clash with McKenna made his first application to join the United Irishmen problematic, he joined their Dublin Society in the new year, committing himself to an alliance with northern Presbyterians to secure full and immediate Catholic emancipation and parliamentary reform. 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". In 1792, he printed William Drennan's Address to the Volunteers which urged defiance of the law banning the Volunteer militia movement and its political conventions. In 1793 he also published W. Todd Jones's Reply to an anonymous writer from Belfast, in which Jones, MP for Lisburn (1783–1790), defended his uncompromising advocacy of emancipation and reform.

Carey did not fit easily into the Dublin Society. He was unusual in the United Irishmen, for example, in that he took the side of the journeymen in the contemporary labour agitation. Politically, he was aligned with James Napper Tandy and John Binns.

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. The printing of Drennan's Address in December caused Carey further trouble with the Dublin administration. His creditors called in their debts, he sold the Star to Randal McAllister, and went into hiding. An attempt to get help from the United Irishmen led to his arrest and release on bail in March 1793. With a wife and a family he could not easily flee the country.

Expecting more support from the Society than he received, Carey complained in a letter sent under a pseudonym to and was expelled from the Society in November 1793. 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.