William Morrison

William (Billy) Morrison was born in County Antrim, Ireland, in a small village near Glengormley, called at Mallusk on 14 July 1881. He was a gifted poet and nature lover and his moving accounts of rural Mallusk remain particularly poignant today in light of the increasing industrialization of the area. Early life and family Billy's original home was Old Bush House, a Blacksmiths Forge, located in one of the Barron Family's Dairy Fields. It was known as 'Frank's Field' after his blacksmith grandfather and was opposite the Old Scullion's Road where the Northern Bank is today. His grandfather Francis Morrison married Margaret Ayr of Broughshane and had a family of three sons and four daughters. Their first son, Frank, the Bard's father, married John Adams's daughter Mary Elizabeth on 14 April 1876, her family owned the ‘Crown and Shamrock’ pub on the Antrim Road between Glengormley and Templepatrick. Billy attended Mallusk National School at Trench Lane and his poem 'The Old Schoolhouse' is a classic account of 19th century schooldays.