George McWhirter (born September 26, 1939) is an Irish-Canadian writer, translator, editor, teacher and Vancouver's first Poet Laureate.

The son of a shipyard worker, George McWhirter was raised in a large extended family on the Shankill Road in Belfast.

He and his extended family spent the war years and then weekends and the summers at their seaside bungalow in Carnalea, now a suburb of Bangor, County Down.

[2] After graduating, McWhirter taught in Kilkeel and Bangor, County Down, Northern Ireland, and in Barcelona, Spain, before moving to Port Alberni, B.C.

In March 2007, he was named Vancouver's inaugural Poet Laureate for a two-year term.