George O'Connor (hurler)

George O'Connor, born in 1959 in Piercestown, County Wexford, is an Irish former sportsperson who played hurling with his local club St Martin's and with the Wexford senior inter-county team from 1979 until 1996. He was born into a hurling household, the second eldest of four boys, and his father Paddy was a midfielder on the Wexford junior team that won the Leinster Junior Hurling Championship in 1940. O'Connor played his underage and club hurling and football with St Martin's, sharing in the club's minor hurling success of 1974 as a fourteen-year-old substitute and helping it win the intermediate football championship in 1982. At inter-county level he captained the Wexford minors to the 1977 Leinster final, won a Leinster under-21 title in 1979, made his senior debut in the 1979 Oireachtas final and received an All-Star award in 1981. After Wexford's long wait for success he collected a Leinster title in 1996 and then an All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship medal, starting at midfield in the final win over Limerick. In 2002 a six-person panel included him in a list representing the greatest Wexford hurling team.