Stephen de Búrca selected as winner of the Inaugural Gerald Dawe Poetry Bursary

Poetry Ireland, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council and The Linen Hall Library, Belfast are delighted to announce that Stephen de Búrca has been selected as the recipient of the inaugural Home Again Gerald Dawe Poetry Bursary.

The bursary aims to celebrate and remember Gerald Dawe, especially his connections to Belfast, Dún Laoghaire and Dublin, and in doing so support the development of new poetry inspired by both the materials held at dlr LexIcon and The Linen Hall Library with which he had a particular affinity, and his sense of being 'Home Again' in either Dún Laoghaire or Belfast. 

Stephen de Búrca is a writer from Galway based in Belfast. His debut poetry collection, Atlantic Fret, is forthcoming with The Gallery Press in 2026. He completed his doctorate at the Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen’s University Belfast in 2025 and his MFA at the University of Florida in 2020. He was selected for the Poetry Ireland Introductions series in 2023, and his work has featured in journals such as Poetry Ireland Review, PN Review, Banshee, Propel Magazine, Skylight 47, Crannóg, and Abridged.

Speaking on the receipt of the bursary Stephen said:

“It is a real privilege to receive this bursary. Gerald Dawe has been such an important figure for poetry in Ireland and beyond since his first collection nearly fifty years ago. His influence is not confined to his own poetry. His work as a thoughtful, insightful critic and as a passionate, selfless teacher underscores the significant body of work he produced over the years. I am thrilled to begin this project in the new year and work together with Poetry Ireland, The Linen Hall Library, and the dlr Arts Office.”

The bursary is funded through Poetry Ireland and Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council Arts Office in memory of Gerald Dawe, drawing on his private collections donated by his family to dlr Lexicon, Dún Laoghaire, and to The Linen Hall Library, Belfast. He was a poet who had a profound connection to people and place, and the awardee will celebrate both his love of and connection to his native Belfast and his love of Dún Laoghaire, his adopted home.

Gerald’s family have also kindly offered Stephen the opportunity to study Gerald’s unpublished work created in the years before his passing, as well as providing access to Gerald’s own reading library at his home in Dún Laoghaire.