Congratulations to Stephen de Búrca on being chosen as the recipient of the inaugural Home Again Gerald Dawe Poetry Bursary funded by Poetry Ireland, The Linen Hall Library and Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council.
Having published Gerry Dawe’s poetry since 1985 there’s a certain serendipity in this choice for us.
The bursary honours and commemorates Gerald Dawe, with particular emphasis on his connections to Belfast, Dún Laoghaire, and Dublin. It seeks to support the creation of new poetry inspired by both the collections held at dlr LexIcon and The Linen Hall Library — institutions with which he had a special affinity — and by his sense of being ‘Home Again’ in either Dún Laoghaire or Belfast.
Stephen de Búrca is a Galway-born writer based in Belfast. His debut poetry collection, Atlantic Fret, is forthcoming from The Gallery Press in 2026.
He completed a doctorate at the Seamus Heaney Centre, Queen’s University Belfast, in 2025, having previously earned an MFA from the University of Florida in 2020. He was selected for the Poetry Ireland Introductions series in 2023, and his work has appeared in Poetry Ireland Review, PN Review, Banshee, Propel Magazine, Skylight 47, Crannóg, and Abridged.
