Galway city poet Stephen de Búrca has been selected as the recipient of the inaugural Home Again Gerald Dawe Poetry Bursary,  in memory of the late poet, who died in 2024.

The bursary, created by Poetry Ireland, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council and Belfast’s Linen Hall Library, aims to celebrate and remember Gerald, especially his connections with Belfast, Dún Laoghaire and Dublin, while supporting the development of new poetry inspired by Gerald’s materials, held at dlr Lexlcon library and The Linen Hall Library.

Stephen de Búrca is currently based in Belfast, having completed his doctorate at the Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen’s University last year, preceded by an MFA at the University of Florida in 2020. His debut poetry collection, Atlantic Fret, will be published by The Gallery Press this year.

He was selected for the Poetry Ireland Introductions series in 2023, and won the Over the Edge New Writer of the Year (poetry) in Galway in 2019. His work has featured in journals such as Poetry Ireland Review, PN Review, Banshee, Propel Magazine, Skylight 47, Crannóg and Abridged.

Receiving the the bursary was “a real privilege”, Stephen said. And he stated of the late poet, who lived in Galway in the 1980s and early 1990s, “Gerald Dawe has been such an important figure for poetry in Ireland and beyond since his first collection nearly fifty years ago”.

In addition, “his work as a thoughtful, insightful critic and as a passionate, selfless teacher underscores the significant body of work he produced over the years”.

Stephen will embark on the bursary project early this year, working with Poetry Ireland, The Linen Hall Library and the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council Arts Office.

The award will enable Stephen to draw on Gerald’s private collections, which his family donated to dlr Lexlcon and The Linen Hall Library.

Gerald’s family have also offered Stephen the opportunity to study unpublished work created by the poet in the years before his death, as well as providing access to Gerald’s reading library at his home in Dún Laoghaire.

Pictured: Stephen dé Búrca.