LIMERICK sporting legend Jackie McCarthy O’Brien will launch her memoir – We Made It, Kid – at O’Mahony’s Bookstore on O’Connell Street on Tuesday October 7 at 6.30pm.
Jackie has led a truly remarkable life, from being born in 1961 to an Irish mother and Jamaican father (whom she never met) in Birmingham to growing up in Limerick. She was put in an industrial school as a baby by a priest for being an “illegitimate” black child and not recovered by her mother until she was five.
As a teen, she excelled at sport and played for Ireland in soccer, but when she was sexually harassed by a coach she changed to the Irish rugby team.
She got married at 21 before accepting her sexual feelings for women, and leaving the marriage with her three young children.
Always a hilarious raconteur, the new memoir tells her extraordinary story up until becoming a TikTok star and LGBTQ+ icon in her 60s, and includes memories around her outing as the Grand Marshall for Limerick Pride 2023.
Of the memoir, fellow author Katriona O’Sullivan commented: “Compelling, heartfelt, and inspiring. I found this book so real, so honest. It has taught me about drive, ambition, persistence, and love. And what it means to be really Irish! A triumphant story of achievement in a world made for men!”
In an interview on Live 95’s Limerick Today, Jackie recalled her childhood in Limerick, where she and three others were the only children of colour in the 1960s.
“It was quite lonely not to have somebody that looked like you,” she said.
She credits her adoptive father for encouraging her to pursue sports, which became her refuge.
“On the pitch, I was a giant,” she said.
The memoir launch is open to all to attend.