 He was the patriarch of the prominent Irish republican Crowley family of Ballylanders, and the father of the longest hunger strikers in history, Peter William Crowley and John Crowley, and the Fianna Fáil Politician Tadhg Crowley.He was baptised on 31 July 1847 to James Crowley and Bridget Dwyer of Elton, in the parish of Knockainey, County Limerick.His parents had been married two years prior, and his sponsors were Thomas Dwyer and his grandmother Bridget Dwyer (née Ashe).