Support pours in for Cork singer Jimmy Crowley following cancer diagnosis and stroke

Donations to help Cork folk musician and song collector Jimmy Crowley return home have topped €11,000 just hours after a GoFundMe page was set up.

Crowley, who started collecting music at the age of 16, shared that he was diagnosed with stage three oesophageal cancer in September last year.

In a post published to Facebook on Thursday afternoon, he informed the “dear people of this beautiful city and beyond” of the news and explained that he was calling on them “as a last resort”.

“I've been rather under the weather of late. In late September 2025, I was diagnosed with Stage Three oesophageal cancer. Three months later, on 27th December, I had a debilitating stroke,” he wrote.

“I've been in the Stroke Ward in Cork University Hospital for nearly five months now. I had a good many setbacks and complications during that time, including several falls which resulted in a hip replacement and then periprosthetic surgery on the same hip.

"I am now mostly wheelchair-bound, but have not given up on learning to walk.”

Mr Crowley reminisced about his life as a full-time musician, cyclist, all-year-round sea-swimmer, and walker before his cancer diagnosis and stroke.

He explained that all he wants is to be able to return home, but that it would require support in the form of two full-time carers.

“Now all I want is to be able to return home to Cobh, to my pussycat Smudge and my sweetheart Eve. I'm soon to be discharged from CUH, and the choice is stark: home or nursing home,” he wrote.

“Unfortunately, the only way I can return home is if I have two carers living with me 24/ 7. My partner Eve will be a full-time carer, but I need a second carer. I kindly request any donations, large or small, to help me afford a second live-in carer so I can finally return to Cobh and live at home, rather than in a nursing home, for the time I have left.” 

He assured that all donations will also help with the rising costs of suddenly having to live with not one but two life-changing health conditions.

Mr Crowley told The Echo that he had got to make a brief trip home today, and “I’ll hopefully be going home for good soon. I don’t want to go to a nursing home.” His partner Eve said: “We’re hoping he’ll be discharged in a week, but it’s really dependant on how the fundraiser goes.

“We were given the ultimatum a couple of weeks ago that we’d have to find him a second live-in carer.

“It’s been really hard, because Jimmy is quite a private person and he normally wouldn’t share something like this, but he’s been forced to.

“There’s no shame in it, and the community spirit has been wonderful. We only just put the fundraiser up, we’re amazed with how well it’s doing.

“All we want is for him to be able to come home and stay home for the time he has left.” 

You can donate at https://gofund.me/b76d22a41.