Papers documenting the career of Gerald Dawe as a poet, essayist, and academic consist of artifacts, audiovisual recordings, clippings, correspondence, ephemera, manuscripts and typescripts, notebooks, photographs, and scrapbooks primarily pertaining to Gerald Dawe's literary community, in particular modern Irish poets.

Correspondence demonstrates Dawe's friendships and professional exchanges with other Irish authors and documents the administrative aspect of his speaking and publishing career. Notable correspondents include photographer Bobbie Hanvey and authors Seamus Heaney, Padriac Fiacc, Thomas Kinsella, Michael Longley, and Edna O’Brien. His papers also include writings and photographs from his peers.

Speeches from broadcasts and literary events complement drafts of Dawe’s published writings and editorial work, showing his contribution to scholarship at the intersection of Irish poetry, history, and culture. Dawe’s writing process is documented throughout the process: beginning with his notebooks, containing the earliest drafts of his poetry and criticism, to typescripts and proofs gathered by work, and culminating in release information and reviews for many publications.

Dawe’s teaching materials contain his notes for courses on Irish dramatists, novelists, and poets, given at University College Galway and Trinity College Dublin.