About the author

JS Larkin

JS Larkin is a freelance writer with an inside knowledge of Irish republicanism. His expertise in the field provides an analytical understanding and clarity of republicanism based on his own experiences, helpful assets towards writing <em>The Unpatriot Game</em> Series, a <em>Belfast Coming of Age </em>tale, set during the <em>War </em>known as <em>The Troubles</em>.<br>Larkin was born into the poverty of the 60s, in the front-room of a damp-infested home in the old Pound Loney. A house like many others, the walls inside held together by decades of wallpaper. The window of his bedroom was always condensated, and saw icicles hang from the frames throughout the winters, a sheet of ice covering the windowpane. A home alive with cockroaches and fleas, the latter sometimes attending school with him and led to a lot of scratching.&nbsp;<br>​​​​​​​He remembers those times when the streets were still lit by old gas lamps, and every shadow was a ghost. The wail from the yard wall was the Banshee crying as she combed her hair, and I buried my head in the pillows to hide and drown out her sad crying sounds. He&nbsp;thinks a lot about those places where he played as a boy with his friends, and a bay of memories swept by the sea of his childhood, ebb and flow onto the shore of his mind for all time. <br>​​​​​​​Sometimes he thinks maybe it really was the banshee crying for what was to visit his homeland. The bombs and bullets. The sadness and madness. The badness and the deaths. Something he’d never expected. After all, they were just kids and became witnesses to what would evolve into much more in the City we loved, and that monsters really do exist. <br>Like many, he grew up during one of the most turbulent times in Irish history that began with a sectarian Pogrom in 1969, he was 11 years old.&nbsp;That was followed by the 1970 Curfew, again at Catholics in the Parish of St Peter's. In August 1971 'Operation Motorman' was introduced, and Internment for Catholic's began.​​​​​​​ <br>​​​​​​​In 1974, when all electric, gas, and food deliveries were cut-off to Catholic Ghettos, he was 16 years old, and fully understood the real nature of bigotry and second class citizenship.<br>​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​<em>'The past is a shadow that follows in day and night, stepping into your dreams when it chooses to,'</em><br>​​​​​<br>​​​​<br>​​​​​