There was often confusion over McLarnin's exact place of birth and his date of birth. McLarnin himself was unsure as to the exact location and at various times claimed to be born in
Inchicore,
Dublin, in modern-day
Ireland, or the
Lisburn Road in
Belfast,
Ireland, modern day
Northern Ireland. Adding to the confusion he went by nicknames the
Dublin Destroyer and
Belfast Spider. It was Irish boxing historian Patrick Myler who later unearthed McLarnin's birth certificate which showed that McLarnin was born in
Hillsborough, County Down, Ireland in 1907. McLarnin's father, Sam McLarnin, a
Methodist from Dublin, was described as 'a typical Dublin Irishman' and traveled throughout Britain and Ireland for work as a butcher. He later married Mary Ferris from Belfast and they settled in County Down before being drawn into Belfast. When McLarnin was three years of age the whole family emigrated to
Saskatchewan, Canada via Liverpool. The McLarnins started out as a wheat farmers, but years later, at the age of 10 and following a particularly harsh winter, the family moved to
Vancouver where they opened a second-hand clothes store in Vancouver's east end. McLarnin was a prodigious athlete, his main sports were football, baseball and boxing and was considered a model of propriety by Rev. A.E. Roberts at the Methodist mission in Vancouver. He took up boxing at the age of 10 after getting into a fight defending his newspaper-selling pitch. Former professional boxer Charles "Pop" Foster recognized McLarnin's talent at the age of 13. He constructed a makeshift gym for McLarnin to train in, sure that he would one day be the champion of the world. The two of them would remain close, and when Foster died, he left everything he had to McLarnin. ==Boxing career==