The archive, which documents the Troubles and the Peace Process, is to be commemorated at an event in the library on Thursday, October 16, to be attended by Lord Mayor Tom Hartley, who has has been the collection’s largest single donor since the 1980s.

In 2005 he donated around 3,000 items from his personal collection. He is also an honorary member of the Linen Hall Library.

From next Monday, the library will exhibit new items in the collection, including ex-UVF leader Gusty Spence’s reading material while he was in Crumlin Road Gaol in 1967, the ‘Comm’ (prison letter) that ended the 1981 Hunger Strike and other original documents that have defined the past four decades.

A discussion entitled Visual Culture in Troubled Times will also take place in the library next Tuesday at 6.30pm.

The Northern Ireland Political Collection, which has grown to around 300,000 items, is located on level three of the library and is open to the public.