Life
1952- [Gerald Chartres Dawe]; b. N. Belfast; ed. Orangefield Boys School
(‘an extraordinary school’); NUU (Coleraine), BA; studied Carleton
under Lorna Reynolds, Galway, MA 1978; lecturer, UCG; temp. lect., TCD;
introduced to Padraic Fiacc by Brendan Hamill, 1973; held major state
award for research, 1974-77; Arts Council Bursary for poetry, 1980; Macauley
Fellowship for Literature, 1984; taught at UCG, 1977-1986,
and TCD 1977- ; m. Dorothy; dg. b. 1981; poems, Sheltering Places (1978)
and The Lundys Letter (1985); fnd. ed. Krino; ed. with Edna
Longley, Across the Roaring Hill: The Protestant Imagination in Modern
Ireland (1985) and The Younger Irish Poets (1982, reiss. 1991);
criticism includes How’s the Poetry Going? (1991), False
Faces (1994), and Against Piety: Essays in Irish Poetry (1995);
Director of the Oscar Wilde Centre for Irish Writing (TCD); issued The
Rest is History (1998), dealing with influence of Belfast culture
on Van Morrison and Stewart Parker; issued Lake Geneva (2003),
poems; lives in Dun Laoghaire town, Co. Dublin. DIW ORM OCIL FDA
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Works
Poetry, Heritages (Breakish: Aquila/Wayzgoose Press 1976),
[20]pp. [also signed ltd. edn. of 25]; Blood and Moon (Belfast:
Lagan Press 1976) [16pp.; pamph.]; Sheltering Places (Belfast: Blackstaff
1978); Dead Loss [Poetry Ireland Poems, No. 9] (Portmarnock: Poetry Ireland
1979) [ 1 sht.; igned copy, TCD Library]; The Lundys Letter (Oldcastle:
Gallery Press 1985), 49pp.; The Water Table (Belfast: Honest Ulsterman
1991), [6], 18pp.; Sunday School (Oldcastle: Gallery Press 1991),
47pp.; Heart of Hearts (Oldcastle: Gallery Press 1995), 47pp.;
The Morning Train (Oldcastle: Gallery Press 1999), 51pp.; Lake
Geneva (Oldcastle: Gallery Press 2003), 56pp.
Criticism, How’s the Poetry Going? (Belfast: Lagan Press 1991) [review essays; infra]; A Real Life Elsewhere (Belfast: Lagan Press 1993) 112pp. [essay]; False Faces: Essays on Poetry, Politics and Place (Belfast Lagan Press 1994), 104pp.; Against Piety: Essays on Irish Poetry (Belfast: Lagan Press 1995), 193pp. [12 essays as infra]; Stray Dogs and Dark Horses: Selected Essays on Irish Writing and Criticism (Newry: Abbey Press 2000), 212pp.
Miscellaneous, ed., The Younger Irish Poets (Belfast: Blackstaff Press 1982), and Do. [reiss. as] The New Younger Irish Poets (Belfast: Blackstaff Press 1991), xv, 176pp.; ed., with Edna Longley, Across the Roaring Hill: The Protestant Imagination in Modern Ireland (Belfast: Blackstaff 1985), xviii, 242pp. [infra]; intro., Faces in a Bookshop: Irish Literary Portraits (Galway: Kennys’ Bookshop 1990), 163pp. [marking 50th Anniversary of Kennys]; ed., Yeats: The Poems (Dublin: Anna Livia 1993). 160 pp.; ‘An Absence of Influence, Three Modernist Poets’, in Tradition and Influence in Anglo-Irish Poetry, ed. Terence Brown & Nicholas Grene (London 1989), pp.119-42; ed., with John Wilson Foster, The Poet’s Place - Ulster literature and Society: Essays in Honour of John Hewitt, 1907-87 (Belfast: Institute of Irish Studies 1991), xi, 330pp.; intro. to Thomas MacDonagh, Literature in Ireland: Studies in Irish and Anglo-Irish [1916] (Nenagh, Co. Tipperary: Relay Books 1996) [with profile by Nancy Murphy], xiv, 209pp.; with Jonathan Williams, ed. Krino 1986-1996: An Anthology of Irish Writing (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan 1996), 435pp. [incl. 80 writers; critical essays by Susan Schriebman, Hugh Haughton; J. C. C. Mays; Eavan Boland; Nuala Ni Dhomnaill; Terence Brown; Henry Gifford; Eoin Bourke also stories by John McGahern; Peter Hollywood.] The Rest is History (Newry: Abbey Press 1998), 123pp.; ed., with Michael Mulreany, The Ogham Stone: An Anthology of Contemporary Ireland (Dublin: IPA 2001), x, 230pp., ill., ports.
Contributions, ‘Checkpoints: The Younger Irish Poets’, in Crane Bag, 6, 1 (1983), pp.85-89; ‘Brief Confrontations: Convention as Conservatism in Modern Irish Poetry’, in Crane Bag, 7, 2 (1983), pp.143-47; ‘A Question of Imagination: Poetry in Ireland Today’, in Michael Keneally, ed., Cultural Contexts and literary Idioms in Contemporary Irish Literature, ed. Colin Smythe 1988) [infra]; ‘Living in Our Time,’ review, in Linen Hall Review, (Summer 1990), pp.42-3; “Three Poems” [‘Herald’; ‘Heart of Hearts’; ‘Couplet’] in Canadian Journal of Irish Studies, Vo. 17 No. 2 (Dec. 1991), p.103; interview with W. J. McCormack/Hugh Maxton, Linenhall Review (Spring 1994), pp.14-16; ‘Visiting Chartres’, in Fortnight (Nov. 1994), 32-33 [taking issue with Ronan Bennett’s ‘An Irish Answer’ in the Guardian, Mary Holland, and others, ‘a key feature of Protestantism is precisely its intense individualism and reluctance to nominate itself, or to be exploited, as representative’]; see also Graph, No. 1 (Sept. 1995), & No. 2 (March 1996); ‘Parts of Speech’, in Fortnight Review (May 1995), p.38 [an account of his experience and views of the Irish language and politics relating to same]; ‘Praising the Poet’, in Fortnight Review, 344 (Nov. 1995), p.22-23 [infra]; ‘Civil Codes’ in Fortnight Review ( March 1996), pp.26-27) [with cheerful phot. ill.; writing on Ireland and Czechoslovakia]; ‘Finding the Language: Poetry, Belfast, and the Past’, New Hibernia Review, 1, 1 (Spring 1997), pp.9-18; ‘Small is Beautiful’, in Fortnight (July-Aug. 1997), p.26 [infra]; ‘Bring it all back home’, in Fortnight (Jan. 1999) [review of Michael Longley, Selected Poems and Broken Dishes; also Denis Sampson, The Chamelion Novelist: Brian Moore]; “Raccoons” [a poem], in The Irish Times (10 May 2003), Weekend, p.10; “Midsummer Report” and “The Interface” [two poems], in Fortnight (April 2003), p.31 [infra]; Gerald Dawe, ‘Francis Ledwidge: A Man of His Time’, in The Irish Times (31 July 2004), p.11 [extract from comm. lecture given at Slane, Sunday 25th July 2004; see under Ledwidge, infra].
Also, extensive contribs. to The Honest Ulsterman, issues 57-97 (see Tom Clyde, ed., Honest Ulsterman, Author Index, 1995).
Bibliographical
details
Across the Roaring Hill: The Protestant
Imagination in Modern Ireland, ed. Gerald Dawe & Edna Longley
(Belfast: Blackstaff 1985), xviii, 242pp.; contains essays, James Simmons,
‘The Recipe for All Misfortunes, Courage’, pp.79-98; Michael
Allen, ‘Notes on Sex in Beckett’, pp.25-38; W J McCormack, ‘The
Protestant [?Side], A Short History of Anglo-Irish Literature from S T
Coleridge to Thomas Mann, pp.48-78; Edna Longley, ‘Louis MacNeice,
The Walls are Flowing’, 99-123; Bridget O’Toole, ‘Three
Writers and the Big House, Elizabeth Bowen,Molly Keane, Jennifer Johnston’,
124-38; J W Foster, ‘The Dissidence of Dissent, John Hewitt and W
R Rodgers’, 161-81; Terence Brown, ‘Poets and Patrimony, Richard
Murphy and James Simmons’, pp.182-95; Lynda Henderson, ‘Transcendance
and Imagination in Contemoporary Ulster Drama, pp.196-217; Dawe, ‘Icon
and Lares, Derek Mahon and Michael Longley’, pp.196-217; also Simmons,
‘A Study of Three Works by Ulster Protestant Authors; Apostate
by Forrest Reid, Castle Corner by Joyce Cary, and December Bride
by Sam Hanna Bell’ [end piece]; the title of the collection derives
from a poem by John Hewitt (‘across the roaring hill ... our indigenous
Irish din’).
Against Piety: Assays in Irish Poetry (Lagan Press 1995), 193pp.; Brief Confrontations: The Irish Writer’s History [19]; A Question of Imagination: Poetry in Ireland [31]; An Absence of Influence: Three Modernist Poets [45]; Heroic Heart: Charles Donnelly [65]; Anatomist of Melancholia: Louis MacNeice [81]; Against Piety: John Hewitt [89]; Our Secret Being: Padraic Fiacc [105]; Blood and Farnily: Thomas Kinsella [113]; Invocation of Powers:John Montague [127]; Breathing Spaces: Brendan Kennelly [145]; Icon and Larcs: Michael Longley and Derek Mahon [153]; The Suburban Night: Eavan Boland, Paul Durcan and Thomas McCarthy [169].
The New Younger Irish Poets, ed. Gerald Dawe (Belfast: Blackstaff 1982; rev. edn. 1991); contains poems by Thomas McCarthy; Denis O’Driscoll; Julie O’Callaghan; Rita Ann Higgins; Sebastian Barry; Aidan Carl Matthews; Sean Dunne; Mairead Byrne; Michael O’Loughlin; Brendan Cleary; Dermot Bolger; Peter Sirr; Andrew Elliott; John Hughes; Peter McDonald; Patrick Ramsay; Pat Boran; Kevin Smith; Martin Mooney; John Kelly; Sara Berkeley; also biographical and bibliographical notes; select bibliography; poetry publishers; acknowledgements; index of first lines. [Ulster poets are Martin Mooney; Peter McDonald; John Kelly; John Hughes; Andrew Elliot; Brendan Cleary.]
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C. L. Dallat, review of Breaking News by Ciaran Carson and Lake Geneva by Gerald Dawe, in The Guardian (Sat. 18 Oct. 2003).
Brian Lynch, reviewing Against Piety, Essays in Irish Poetry
(Lagan 1995), in The Irish Times (20 Jan. 1996) [Weekend].
Peter Denman, review of The Ledger of Fruitful Exchange (1996 [sic]), with Heart of Hearts (1995), Irish Literary Supplement, p.10.
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Notes
Books in Print (1994): Sheltering Places (Belfast: Blackstaff 1978)
[0 85640 138 2]; The Lundys Letter (Dublin: Gallery Press 1985, 1993)
0 40411 85 2; var. 063 6]; Sunday School (Dublin: Gallery Press 1991)
[1 85235 064 4]; The Water Table (Belfast: Ulsterman Publications 1991);
How’s the Poetry Going?, Literature and Politics in Ireland Today
(Lagan Press 1991) [1 873687 00 1]; with J W Foster, The Poet’s Place,
Ulster Literature and Society, Essays in Honour of John Hewitt 1907-1987
(QUB: Irish Studies Inst. 1991) [0 85 389 408 6]; also Gerald Dawe intro,
Faces in a Bookshop, Irish literary portraits (Galway: Kennys 1990), 163pp
[0-906312 38 X]
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)