Director, screenwriter and composer. From 1990 to 1993 he was a bas player and singer in the Irish rock band The Frames and directed several of their videos. He also directed several short feature films and afterwards, together with his friend Tom Hall, wrote and directed the low-budget feature black and white drama November Afternoon (1996), for which he also wrote the music. With Hall he co-directed the drama Park (1999), and then directed the drama On the Edge (2001) starring Cillian which was also distributed in movie theatres in the US.  Together with Tom Hall and his brother Kieran Carney he wrote and directed the successful TV series Bachelors Walk (2001-2003). Together with them he was the author of the low-budget pilot Zonad (2003) starring Cillian Murphy, but the recorded material was never published. His first bigger success was the low-budget musical drama Once (2007) starring real musicians. The song from the film won an Oscar and the film itself was awarded with many other film and musical awards. Thanks to the financial success of this film, Carney and his brother Kieran made the full version of Zonad (2010). After his film The Rafters (2012), he was invited to Hollywood where he directed the musical drama Begin Again (2013) starring Keira Knightley and Mark Ruffalo. He was not thrilled with his American experience and returned to low-budget production with his next film Sing Street (2016), musical drama about growing up in Ireland during the 1980’s.