Dunne's collections of poems were all well received, and in order of release are: Against the Storm (1985), The Sheltered Nest (1992)[1] and Time and the Island.
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.
After college Dunne settled in Cork where he worked in the city library and continued to write and publish poems.
[7][8] In 1996 Waterford City Council inaugurated the Sean Dunne Writers Festival in his honour.
[9] The winner of the competition was Luke Byrne from St John's Park, Waterford, for his poem "Winter".