[2] When he was 16, he emigrated to the United Kingdom, settling in London, working in a pub before joining the Royal Irish Rangers regiment of the British Army.

[2][5] After five years he returned to Ireland and joined the Irish Army, serving in the first infantry battalion and fifth medical company at Renmore Barracks in Galway and rising to the rank of sergeant.

[7] After controversy surrounding the appointment of John McNulty, the Fine Gael candidate, to a state board, Craughwell won the election on 10 October 2014.

[10] He did not endorse Alliance members' criticism of the government's January 2016 appointment of David Begg, as Chair of the Pensions Authority.

[15] In 2016 Craughwell took a case on behalf of himself and a number of local authority members in Ireland to attempt to stop the deduction of Class K from their representation payments under the 2011 Oireachtas Act as it did not contribute towards any benefits for Social Protection and was considered unconstitutional as a result.

Despite successfully repelling a band of Katangan mercenaries without the loss of any Irishmen under Quinlan's command this event had been shamefully regarded by both the Department of Defence and the Department of Foreign Affairs as a military defeat while Quinlan only surrendered having run out of ammunition as demonstrated in various scholarly texts and in the acclaimed film Siege of Jadotville.