John O’Loughlin was born in Salthill, Galway, the Republic
of Ireland,
of mixed Irish- and British-born parents in 1952. Following a parental split
he was brought to England by his mother and grandmother (who had initially returned to Ireland with her daughter upon the death of her Aldershot-based husband) in the mid-50s and subsequently attended schools in
Aldershot (Hampshire) and, upon the death and repatriation of his ethnically-protective grandmother and an enforced change of
denomination from Catholic to Protestant in consequence of having been put into
care by his mother, Carshalton (Surrey). Upon leaving secondary school in pre-GCSE era 1970 with an
assortment of CSEs
(Certificate of Secondary Education) and GCEs
(General Certificate of Education), including history and music, he moved to London and went on, via two short-lived
jobs, to work at the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music in Bedford
Square, where he eventually became responsible for booking ABRSM examination venues throughout the British & Irish Isles.
After a brief flirtation with Redhill
Technical College back in Surrey, he returned to his former job in the West End
but, due to a combination of factors, left the Associated Board in 1976 and began to pursue a literary vocation which,
despite a brief spell as a computer-cum-office-skills tutor at Hornsey YMCA in the late '80s and
early '90s, he has steadfastly continued with ever since. His novels include Changing Worlds (1976), An Interview
Reviewed (1979), Secret
Exchanges (1980), Sublimated
Relations(1981), and False Pretences (1982). Since the mid-80s John O'Loughlin has dedicated himself almost exclusively to
philosophy, which he regards as his true literary vocation, and has accordingly penned several titles of a
philosophical nature, including Devil and
God (1985–6), Towards
the Supernoumenon(1987), Elemental Spectra (1988–9), Philosophical Truth (1991–2) and,
more recently, The Best
of All Possible Worlds (2008), The Centre of Truth
(2009), Insane but not Mad (2011) and Philosophic Flights of Poetic Fancy (2012).
