George Morrison (Northern Ireland politician)

George Morrison (23 November 1924 - 22 October 2014) was a unionist politician from Northern Ireland.

Morrison was raised in Saintfield, having been "unofficially adopted" by the Kinghan family.[1] He worked variously as a boilermaker at Harland & Wolff and in several positions at Lagan Valley Hospital.[1] He married Emily in 1947 (being widowed in 2012) with the couple having two children, Isobel and Tommy.[1]

Morrison was a founder member of the Vanguard Unionist Progressive Party and chaired their Lisburn branch.[2] He represented the VUPP in the Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention as a member for the South Antrim constituency.[3] He was part of the majority group in the party that opposed leader Bill Craig's idea of a voluntary coalition with the Social Democratic and Labour Party and as such switched to the newly formed United Ulster Unionist Party in 1975.[2] He was a member of the United Unionist Action Council that co-ordinated the failed Ulster Workers' Council strike of 1977.[4]

Morrison was a member of Lisburn Borough Council from 1973 to 1993, representing the Ulster Unionist Party from 1983.[5] A member of the Orange Order, he served the organisation in a number of prominent roles, including Lisburn district secretary, County Grand Master for Antrim, deputy Grand Secretary of the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland and Honorary Deputy Grand Master of the Orange Order.[1]

Whilst serving as Mayor of Lisburn in the early 1990s he took a heart attack but survived. However he suffered a second, this time fatal, heart attack in 2014 and died aged 89. He was buried after a service at Railway Street Presbyterian Church in the city.[1]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 OBITUARY: top Orangeman George Morrison
  2. 1 2 W. D. Flackes & Sydney Elliott, Northern Ireland A Political Directory 1968-1993, Blackstaff Press, 1994, p. 239
  3. ↑ South Antrim 1973-1982
  4. ↑ "Glossary of the strike", Irish Times, 2 May 1977, p.11
  5. ↑ Flackes & Elliott, Northern Ireland A Political Directory 1968-1993, p. 240
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