Frank Ormsby was born in Enniskillen in 1947. He has published three collections, A Store of Candles, A Northern Spring (both Choices of the Poetry Book Society) and The Ghost Train.

He edited The Honest Ulsterman (1969 to 1989) and, among various anthologies for Blackstaff, Poets from the North of Ireland (1979, 1990), The Long Embrace: Twentieth Century Irish Love Poems (1987), The Collected Poems of John Hewitt (1991) and A Rage for Order : Poetry of the Northern Ireland Troubles (1992).

In 1992 he received the Cultural Traditions Award in memory of John Hewitt. He is head of English at the Royal Belfast Academical Institution.