“An expert on Highland culture.”
— The Times of London
Andrew Morrison, Viscount Dunrossil, was born in London and educated at Eton and Oxford. His father, the second Viscount, is buried near the family home on the Island of North Uist, in the Outer Hebrides. Lord Dunrossil still owns a home there, but has lived for over thirty years in San Antonio, Texas.
With a foot in each camp, a home on either side of the Atlantic, he can act as a bridge between Scotland and Scots overseas.
Lord Dunrossil was invited to join the Standing Council of Scottish Chiefs, and for the last few years has served on its Executive Committee, where he acts as the Council’s link with the United States.
He is a member of the Advisory Board of the Council of Scottish Clans and Associations (COSCA) and an Honorary Patron of the American-Scottish Foundation. He is also a Governor and former Chairman of the Society of Scottish Armigers, whose President is the Lord Lyon, King of Arms. The Society acts as a resource for people interested in Scottish heraldry and in thorny issues of protocol. Many of the Scottish Chiefs are Honorary members of the society and their arms appear in the society’s Armorial, which was published during Lord Dunrossil’s time as Chairman.
In addition, he is a Director of Scottish Heritage USA (SHUSA) and a member of the Hidden Glen Folk School, a community for the study of Gaelic culture. SHUSA has taken up the proposal, first formulated by Michael Newton of Hidden Glen, to establish a chair of Gaelic language and culture at UNC Chapel Hill.
Lord Dunrossil has been the Guest of Honor or keynote speaker at Tartan Day events, Highland Games, Burns Nichts and St Andrew’s Day Dinners, as well as seminars like those put on by the Scottish North American Community Council and COSCA.
Several of his speeches have been reproduced as articles on the COSCA website and then on individual clan society websites. One of these was in turn the subject of a piece in the Times of London, which attempted to stir up a controversy about the role of chiefs in the modern world.
Lord Dunrossil is one of two hereditary chieftains of Clan Morrison (the other being Lord Margadale) under the overall Chief of the Clan, Alasdair Morrison of Ruchdi.
Morrison is the ninth largest clan in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland in terms of numbers and the third largest in the Outer Hebrides, after MacDonald and Macleod.