Jim Loughran graduated in 1976 from Queen’s University Belfast with an Honours Degree in French and Spanish. He spent a year in Paris and the following year completed the Post Graduate Certificate in Education. After two years teaching French in Belfast and 10 years working for one of Dublin’s leading advertising agencies he joined Amnesty International where he was Head of Media and Communications for 15 years. He was then head hunted to join Front Line Defenders, a newly established Irish based human rights organisation working on the security and protection of human rights defenders, as Head of Communications.
Since retiring 5 years ago Jim has turned his attention to creative writing with a focus on historical fiction. He has won first prize in the Open Category of the annual SCC (Sport and Culture Committee) Short Story Competition, for: City of the Damned, a story based on the life of Hugh O’ Neill, Earl of Tyrone the man who came closest to defeating Elizabeth 1’s army in Ireland and recognised as one of the great military strategists of the age.
and Syracuse Must Burn, the story of Timon, a boy with a gift for prophecy, whose premonitions save the city of Syracuse from attack by the Athenian fleet in 413BC
His first appearance in print was ‘Ill Met by Moonlight’ a gothic vampire story published as part of ‘These Dark Things’ an anthology of gothic fiction published by Briar Press, New York.
His first full length novel, working title ‘The Bratinsky Affair,’ will be published by Sharpe Books in 2025.
The Bratinsky Affair is the story of Countess Irina Bratinsky a Russian exile with Irish ancestry who dies in a burning house in Ireland in1976. The death of Countess Irina Bratinsky, international dealer in Fabergé jewels and friend of presidents, in a blazing ruin is international news. For journalist Tom O’Brien it’s an opportunity to advance his career as he exposes the countess’s secret life of espionage and crime. Tom meets Irina’s granddaughter, Olga and they retrace Irina’s steps from revolutionary Russia to war torn France. Inexorably they are drawn into the search for a missing family heirloom – a mystery which has already claimed three lives.
When Irina’s long lost brother Pavel emerges from the gulag as one of the most ruthless criminals in Brezhnev’s Russia he has vengeance on his mind not reconciliation. In their search for answers Tom and Olga confront Pavel in the ruins of Irina’s ancestral home outside Saint Petersburg. The question is: will they survive?
