Former Fianna Fáil MEP Brian Crowley's life was one in which he defied limitations both physical and political, becoming a formidable poll-topper who disregarded sympathy in favour of the hard graft of canvassing and working on behalf of his constituents.
The 61-year-old native of Bandon died in Cork University Hospital this morning, where he had been receiving treatment for some time.
Mr Crowley was born in Dublin in 1964, but it was in Bandon where he would become steeped in the Fianna Fáil tradition.
His father, the late Flor Crowley, was a long-time TD for the party in Cork and regularly took the young Brian with him when he was holding weekend constituency clinics in towns and villages around the county.
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His mother, Sally, also helped in the running of her husband’s constituency office, while raising Brian and his five siblings.
He was paralysed following a fall from a building when he was 16 years old.
However, Mr Crowley did not let the accident deter him from one of the biggest passions in his life: music and gigging.
He was the frontman in the band 'Galaxy’, which he described in an interview with Hotpress in 1999 as "the hardest working band in the world".
It was in that interview he gave an insight into how he became a poll topper in elections.
"If the sympathy vote was that effective imagine what we could have done as a rock band!
"But, in the real world, sympathy is transient. In fact, it amazed me, during elections, how many people would actually say ‘God, I never knew you were in a wheelchair!’ But if it was just sympathy you could milk it dry.
"Yet the truth is that I, myself, don’t look for sympathy. As a singer, or as a politician.
"I want to be judged on my ability to do a job and that's it. And let's face it: could, say, 154,000 people all be giving sympathy votes? I doubt it. It's too simplistic a reading of the whole situation," he told the publication.
Former taoiseach Albert Reynolds called Mr Crowley in 1993 while he was in his second year of studying law to inform him that we wanted to nominate him to the Seanad.
The 1994 European elections came soon after. Mr Crowley decided to contest the election in the Munster constituency and his tireless canvassing efforts came to the fore.
Mr Crowley reportedly said that during the campaign he wore out four sets of tyres on his wheelchair from all his campaigning.
He topped the poll with 84,000 votes in a performance that would be repeated in every European election he subsequently stood in: 1999, 2004, 2009 and 2014.
However, it was during the 2004 campaign that Mr Crowley’s relationship with Fianna Fáil headquarters first became strained.
Mr Crowley was critical of the party’s strategy to divide the massive constituency between himself and his running mate, Gerard Collins.
He retained his seat, but said it was "tinged with sadness" owing to the fact Mr Collins lost his.
Throughout the campaign Mr Crowley said he had warned the party that the strategy would only benefit other candidates.
That episode was not to be his last skirmish with the Fianna Fáil hierarchy.
One of his life’s greatest ambitions was to contest the Presidential Election, making it known repeatedly that he would seek the party’s nomination in 2011.
Party leader Micheál Martin opted not to run any candidate. Choosing, instead, to focus on rebuilding the party after the financial crash and the general election earlier that year which saw the party lose 58 seats.
Mr Crowley stayed in the European Parliament but after another poll topping performance in 2014 with 180,000 first preference votes, he was expelled from Fianna Fáil after he changed groups in the Parliament, moving from the ALDE group to the European Conservative and Reformists group.
However, ill health arising from complications with his condition meant he never attended a single vote during the 2014-2019 session of the EU Parliament.
More than 30 surgeries and lengthy stays in hospital to recover during that period meant he was not fit enough to travel to Brussels and Strasbourg.
However, Mr Crowley said that he did not let that stop him.
"I was able to work remotely but I couldn’t physically get out of bed," he said in 2019 when he announced he would not be seeking re-election.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin led tributes to Mr Crowley, describing him as "a hugely impressive individual" who was "deeply committed to his community and his country".
It was a sentiment echoed by his long-time colleague and friend, Fianna Fáil’s Brussels chairperson Ciarán Bolger.
News of Mr Crowley’s passing came as a "shock to everyone", Mr Bolger told RTÉ News.
He said Mr Crowley was a "total gent" and "great friend" who always worked hard.
Mr Bolger added that Mr Crowley was a man of deep faith who was always there for people who needed his help and that he never let his disability limit him in any way.
