[1] McCarthy first played hurling for the Feenagh junior team as an 11-year-old before gaining further experience as a boarder at Rockwell College.
Here he lined out in back-to-back Harty Cup finals in 1934 and 1935 before winning an All-Ireland medal as part of a star-studded Munster Colleges team that also featured Jack Lynch, John Keane and Connie Buckley.
As a medical student at University College Dublin, McCarthy was involved in several Fitzgibbon Cup campaigns and claimed a winners' medal in 1941.
McCarthy's performances at junior level earned at immediate call-up to the Limerick senior team with whom he won National League, Munster and All-Ireland honours in his debut season in 1936.
He won a further two National League medals over the course of the following two seasons before winning a Limerick Junior Championship with Feenagh in 1938.