O'Brien played hurling as a schoolboy with the Kilkenny CBS team that won the Leinster Junior Championship in 1934.
O'Brien progressed onto the club's senior team and won his sole Kilkenny SHC title after a defeat of Carrickshock in 1939.
[3] O'Brien subsequently earned a call-up to the Kilkenny senior hurling team and played at full-forward in the defeat of Cork in the 1939 All-Ireland final.
After leaving school he trained as a stonemason with Cleere's Builders and he worked in Germany, the Netherlands and the United States.
His sons, Seánie and Paddy O'Brien, played hurling with the James Stephens club and won All-Ireland MHC honours with Kilkenny in 1972.