Gerald Dawe took his last breath on 29th May 2024 aged 72, after having graced this world from 22nd April 1952. A celebrated Northern Irish poet, Dawe devoted his life to poetry and literature within the liberal Protestant tradition, operating from Dublin and Galway. He was also actively involved in nurturing upcoming authors across the Irish divide, serving as an educator, compiler, and publisher. He held esteemed roles as a professor and fellow of English at Trinity College Dublin.
His poetry often drew parallels to Derek Mahon, unfolding usually underrepresented narratives of a north Belfast lower middle-class upbringing. Dawe’s perception of nostalgia was unique – for him, it was a way of dealing with the current loss, predominantly that of home. A strong emphasis of his work was on memory, insinuating that it serves as a bridge to the present rather than solely a reflection of the past – a notion he gracefully represented through his poetry.
He scrutinised religion in his 1991 collection, titled Sunday School. He viewed sin as something that coexisted with the physical environment and the substantial architectures of the community, explaining this in a BBC documentary in 2024. However, at the same time, sin didn’t hold the same power when presented in phrases like “It’d be a sin to go out on a night like that” (from his poem, Sin). He found more fascination in the people and locales of Belfast than in religious sermons.
His final collection of poems, Another Time: Poems 1978-2023 (2023), is a perfect representation of Dawe’s poetic journey over 45 years. It relies on simplicity in both structure and theme, offering a sincere reflection on everyday life and the unique vernacular of Belfast.
Apart from 14 poetry volumes, Dawe published 10 essay collections. One of his key anthologies includes The Cambridge Companion to Irish Poets (2018). His work, Earth Voices Whispering: An Anthology of Irish War Poetry 1914-45 (2008) is one of Ireland’s most valued anthologies of the past 50 years. It provides a unique contrast of figures like Francis Ledwidge and Eva Gore-Booth, demonstrating how the world wars contributed to contemporary poetry.
The anthology “Across a Roaring Hill”, edited by him and fellow critic Edna Longley, set the blueprint for the notion of a Protestant creativeness in contemporary Ireland. This was inaugurated in 1985 and hinted at a conceptual terrain commencing with Yeats and the Irish Literary Revival, leading to Louis MacNeice, and ultimately to later figures like Mahon and Michael Longley.
In the following year, Dawe initiated a niche literary publication known as Krino. Later, he co-founded the Lagan Press in 1990 along with Patrick Ramsey of Fortnight magazine, following a discussion over a pint in the backroom of Lavery’s in Belfast. This venture was guided by a dual ethos: to exclusively showcase Northern Irish literature, and to operate without the primary goal of profit, as recollected by Ramsey; in terms of the latter directive, it proved exceptionally successful. Following the publication of 200 debutant authors, Lagan Press reached a turning point in 2013 when it amalgamated with the Verbal Arts Centre of Derry.
Dawe, a native of Belfast’s northern district, was born into a city where echoes of the past blitz were ever-present in local surroundings and discourse. Brought up by his mother, grandmother and great-grandmother, along with his sister, he grew up in a predominantly female household. His birthplace, squeezed alongside Cave Hill and the Lough, was a diverse neighbourhood boasting a variety of residents that included Jewish refugee families, an Austrian pedigree poodle breeder, and even a Catholic home where Dawe was warmly welcomed, almost becoming an adopted son, as recorded in his memoir “A City Imagined: Belfast Soulscapes” published in 2021.
Dawe enrolled at Orangefield boys’ secondary located a couple of bus rides away in east Belfast, a school which also lister writer Brian Keenan and Van Morrison among its former students. Spurred on by the head of English and actor Sam McCready, Dawe took part in the Lyric Youth Theatre, and even had a brief spell in a rock group called The Trolls. His earliest poetic endeavours were sent to Longley, a Belfast poet who Dawe esteemed; Longley responded with words of motivation.
After a brief London sojourn, he pursued English studies at the New University of Ulster (currently known as Ulster University), where he was mentored by renowned critic and author Walter Allen, and became part of the famed Coleraine Cluster of authors. He met regularly with other writers in local pubs, where readings from Mahon and Seamus Heaney took place. He attributed his writing career in academia to these associations, particularly with poets like Thomas Kinsella, even though such a path seemed fantastical at that time.
Following his role as an assistant librarian at the Belfast Central Library, Dawe received a research scholarship and then proceeded to the University College, Galway. Here, he drafted an MA thesis on the Irish author from the Victorian age, William Carleton.
While in Galway, he got acquainted with Dorothea Melvin, who later became his wife in 1979. Together, they have a daughter, Olwen, and a stepson, Iarla. Dorothea provided him with a £16 second-hand Smith typewriter on which he penned his first compilation, Sheltering Places (1978), and subsequently The Lundys Letter (1985), which was the initial set of his poems to be circulated by Gallery Press.
He continued to work in Galway as a lecturer and opted to travel when he moved to Trinity College Dublin for a lecturing job in 1988. The family eventually settled in Dún Laoghaire, South Dublin, in 1992, and Dorothea took the role of head of public affairs at Abbey Theatre in the city.
At Trinity, Dawe was honoured with a fellowship and a professorship in English, where he initiated Ireland’s pioneer creative writing master’s course, and went on to establish the Trinity Oscar Wilde Centre for Irish Writing in 1997. Despite retiring in 2017 and grappling with cancer for a prolonged period, he continued to encourage emerging talent and actively collaborated with other authors. In 2024, the University of St Thomas Minnesota granted him the Lawrence O’Shaughnessy award for poetry.
In 2023, he gifted over a thousand of his own poetry books, pamphlets, and programmes to the Dún Laoghaire public library, the dlr Lexicon, which showcased the exhibition Cultural Belongings: The poetry of Gerald Dawe. This was previously exhibited at the Linen Hall Library in his alternate hometown, Belfast.
He is survived by his wife Dorothea, children Olwen and Iarla, and his sister Pamela.