Seán Dunne

Seán Dunne (1956-1995) was a poet born in Waterford, Ireland.

Life
Seán Dunne's father was Richard Dunne. His mother died when Seán was four, in 1960. Dunne attended Mount Sion primary and secondary schools in Waterford city where he wrote for the school magazine. He attended University College Cork (UCC) where he was taught by Sean Lucy and John Montague and was part of a stream of talent issuing from the university in that period, which included Maurice Riordan, Gregory O'Donoghue, Theo Dorgan, Thomas McCarthy, William Wall, Gerry Murphy, Greg Delanty and others. He was active in student politics, as detailed in his memoir The Road to Silence.

After college Dunne settled in Cork where he worked in the city library and continued to write and publish poems. Around this time he began to make a living from freelance journalism. Soon he joined the Cork Examiner daily newspaper where he became a prominent columnist.

Dunne died young on 3 August 1995 of a heart problem.

Writing
Dunne edited several anthologies, beginning with "The Poets of Munster" (1985) and finishing with the "Ireland Anthology" which was completed posthumously by George O'Brien and his partner Trish Edelstein. He released 3 collections of poems. Seán Dunne's collections of poems have all been well received, and in order of release are: "Against the Storm" (1985), "The Sheltered Nest" (1992) and "Time and the Island". The account of his childhood "In My Father's House" was released in 1991, and was a bestseller.

Sean Dunne Writers Festival
In 1996 Waterford City Council inaugurated the Sean Dunne Writers Festival in his honour. The 2009 Festival took place in Waterford City from Thursday 19th March to Saturday 21st March. It featured Poets such as Tom Paulin, Conor O'Callaghan and MacDara Woods, with Performance Poets Eamon Carr and Raven. It also featured writers AL Kennedy, Paul Carson, Declan Lynch and more. See full programme at http://www.seandunne.ie. The winner of the competition was Luke Byrne from John's Park, for writing a poem called "Winter"