Laurence Crowley, who came from a patrician Dublin family of accountants, became one of the best-known business figures of his generation, firstly as a liquidator and later as a director and chairman of a raft of Irish public companies. His style and his smile suggest that he knows precisely where the bodies are buried, wrote Martin FitzPatrick in this newspaper 20 years ago, on the eve of Dr Crowley becoming governor of the Bank of Ireland. Indeed no one would dare quarrel with that perception of his role and influence over the past 40 years of building businesses, deconstructing them and mopping up after the mistakes of others.