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John (‘Jackie’) Power (1916–94) hurler, was born in 1916 in Annacotty, Co. Limerick.
An extremely talented all-round athlete, he began to play hurling at national school and went on to play for Ahane, as Monaleen had no hurling team. He played at minor level for Limerick in 1932 and made his senior debut in 1935, putting in an outstanding performance at centre-back in his first major match in the Munster senior hurling championship final against Tipperary, a game that Limerick won by 5–5 to 1–4. Despite this display, he was only a substitute for that year's All-Ireland final against Kilkenny, which Limerick lost by a point. He went on to become a mainstay in Limerick's finest-ever hurling team, performing with distinction in a multitude of positions over the next thirteen years until his retirement from the inter-county game, winning two All-Ireland medals and playing in a Limerick team that won the National Hurling League on five occasions. He also played for Munster in nine Railway Cup finals, winning seven. At club level, he won an astonishing fifteen county championship medals with Ahane in the period 1933–55, including two seven-in-a-row triumphs (1933–9, 1942–8). He also won five county football titles with the club in the period 1935–9, making him the holder of a remarkable twenty senior county championship medals.
Jackie's status in Limerick hurling is second only to Mick Mackey, his Ahane clubmate who, like Power, shared in all twenty county titles won by the club in the period 1933–55. Although not a tall man, Power was well built and very strong. Possessed of what would be called in hurling parlance good feet and hands, he was fast, skilful, had great stamina, and was blessed with an uncanny sense of position and ability to read a game. Many observers of hurling would make a case for him to be considered as the most versatile player of all time. He was a fan and proponent of what might be called ‘traditional’ hurling, believing that it was, above all, a team game, and disliking the increasing tendency of players to ‘solo’ with the sliotar. In 1961 he won the Cú Chulainn award as outstanding hurler of the past, and in 1991 he won an All-Star All-Time award.
The great Cork hurler Christy Ring once reputedly observed that Power would have been the first man he would have picked on his ideal team, while Ring's fellow Corkman, Jack Lynch regarded him as the best hurler he had ever played against at inter-county level.
SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR TO A JOHN LOFTUS.
