Hickey, John D. (1911–77), Gaelic games sports journalist, was born 16 April 1911 in Templemore, Co. Tipperary, youngest among at least three sons and two daughters of Patrick Hickey, victualler, and Helena Hickey (née Donoghue), of Main St., Templemore. The ‘D.’ in his name is not found in his birth, marriage, or death certificates. Educated at Thurles CBS, he completed a commercial course after leaving school and became a junior reporter with a local paper, the Tipperary Star. In 1943 he moved as a sub-editor to the Irish Press and subsequently to the Irish Independent in the same capacity in May 1947. The general expansion of sports coverage in Irish newspapers, particularly Gaelic games, meant that he very quickly began to combine reporting on Gaelic football and hurling games with his sub-editing duties. By the turn of the 1960s he was concentrating full-time on reporting, and at his retirement (December 1975) he was assistant sports editor and had been a GAA correspondent with Independent Newspapers for over twenty-five years. He was fond of reminding people that he had reported on fifty All-Ireland finals, including hurling and football deciders, and was actually present at fifty-six hurling All-Irelands. In 1970 he was the sole journalist on the Kerry Gaelic football team around-the-world trip, and he was a special guest on the GAA All-Stars trip to the USA after his retirement in 1976. During his long career he was recognised as setting new standards in sports journalism in Ireland, with an unrivalled command of facts and figures and a forthright approach, delivered in what has been described by his long-time colleague Mitchel Cogley (d. 1991) as ‘ringing prose’ (Ir. Independent, 17 June 1977).
He was no stranger to controversy, and was sometimes accused of partisanship in his support for his beloved Tipperary hurling team. In 1961 press facilities were withdrawn from him by the Cork county board of the GAA after he controversially named Cork legend Christy Ring (qv) as the player who had struck Tipperary's Tom Moloughney with his hurley in a Munster hurling tie between the two counties. ‘John D.'s’ view of the game was always eagerly sought when something controversial happened, and he used to joke that he had ‘exclusion orders’ from eleven counties as a result of his writing. A ban by the Tipperary county board led to his blacklisting the county for a period. He did not like to be contradicted and was in many ways a traditionalist, resigning from the All-Stars selection committee in protest at some of its decisions; he was also a strong advocate of the GAA's ban on foreign games. He died in Dublin on 16 June 1977, and is buried in Glencullen cemetery, Co. Dublin.
He married (1941) Elizabeth (‘Liz’) Deegan, from Kickham St., Thurles, Co. Tipperary. They had three sons, and lived in Churchtown, Co. Dublin.