Hickey was one of twelve children in his family and was a native of Ballinagar, Mallow, County Cork.

At the age of 27, he found employment first with the Cork Steam Packet Company and later with John Daly & Co, then-manufacturers of Tanora.

He was successful at the 1938 general election,[2] unseating Richard Anthony, a former Labour TD who left the Party in the 1920s and sat as an independent.

Hickey made international headlines in February 1939, when, as Lord Mayor of Cork, he refused to give a civic reception to the captain and crew of the German warship SMS Schlesien which was on a 'courtesy visit' to Cork Harbour flying the Nazi flag, despite Irish neutrality.

Hickey said, "the insult given to the Catholic world on the death of the Pope, when the responsible German Press termed our Holy Father a political adventurer".