[1] At the age of 18 he witnessed the upheaval and aftermath of the 1798 United Irishmen rising at the county jail in Downpatrick, where it is believed that one of the assistant schoolmasters was imprisoned.
[2] Crolly went to Maynooth College where he excelled as a student, obtaining a first in Dogmatic Theology in 1806, the same year he was ordained a priest by Archbishop Troy.
Crolly was in demand as a lecturer at Maynooth and spent several years on the academic staff, but in 1812 moved to St Patrick's Church, Belfast.
[4] Crolly spent a decade ministering in his native diocese and among the most important and enduring aspects of his episcopate was the establishment of St. Malachy's College in 1833, although he also oversaw the construction of many churches in rural parishes.
Crolly in Armagh and Archbishop Murray in Dublin were prepared to accept relatively minor adjustments to the academic colleges bill (1845), "from which the teaching of theology was excluded, and which left responsibility for the religious welfare of the students to each denomination."