The main Gaelic Athletic Association stadium in Dublin is named Croke Park, in his honour.

He was the third of eight children of William Croke, an estate agent, and his wife, Isabella Plummer, daughter of an aristocratic Protestant family who disowned her following her Catholic marriage in 1817.

[2] The Irish radical William O'Brien said that Thomas Croke fought on the barricades in Paris during the 1848 French Revolution.

[3] In 1858 he became the first president of St Colman's College, Fermoy, County Cork and then served as both parish priest of Doneraile and Vicar General of Cloyne diocese from 1866 to 1870.

[3] In 1870, Croke was appointed Bishop of Auckland in New Zealand, helped by the strong recommendation of his former professor, Paul Cullen, by then-Cardinal Archbishop of Dublin, who was largely responsible for filling the Australasian Catholic church with fellow Irishmen.

Croke devoted some of his considerable personal wealth to rebuilding diocesan finances and also took advantage of Auckland's economic growth following the development of the Thames goldfields to further his aims, ensuring that all surplus income from parishes at Thames and Coromandel was passed on to him, and he instituted a more rigorous system for the Sunday collection at St Patrick's Cathedral.

On 28 January 1874, after barely three years in office, Croke departed for Europe, on what was ostensibly a 12-month holiday and he did not return to New Zealand.

Within Catholicism, he was a supporter of Gallicanism, as opposed to the Ultramontanism favoured by the Archbishop of Dublin, Cardinal Cullen.

In honour of Croke, his successors as Archbishop of Cashel and Emly traditionally were asked to throw in the ball at the minor Gaelic football and All-Ireland hurling finals.