AN archive of political documents of one of the founding members of Fi-anna Fail has been donated to a Co Down museum.
The collection of work by Eamon Donnelly, a prominent nationalist politician in Ireland during the 1920s and 1930s, has gone on display in the Newry and Mourne Museum.
The archive contains 400 documents including correspondence, speeches, lectures, photographs and contemporary newspaper cuttings.
Born in Middletown, Co Armagh in 1877, Mr Donnelly began his political career as one of the first members of the Irish Volunteers in Armagh, but later broke with the Home Rule party after 1916 and became associated with Eamon de Valera and Michael Collins.
He was elected abstentionist MP for Armagh in 1925 and became one of the founding members of Fianna Fail in 1926.
He served as Fianna Fail TD for Laois-Offaly from 1933 until 1937.
He died in December 1944 and was buried in St Mary's Cemetery in Newry.
The archive collection was donated by Mr Donnelly's grandsons Donal Donnelly-Wood and Sean Donnelly.
Fianna Fail leader Michael Martin and Eamon O Cuiv TD were among political figures who attended the opening of the Eamon Donnelly Collection yesterday.
Historian Dr Eamon Phoenix said the archive "sheds invaluable new light on the career of a leading figure on the Republican wing of Northern nationalist politics after 1916".
"These letters chart Donnelly's ardent anti-partitionism, his growing disillusionment with de Valera's Northern policy by the late 1930s and his key role in the establishment of the Anti-Partition League after his death in 1944."
Museum curator Noreen Cunningham said: "We invite local people to visit the museum and see some items from this collection which are currently on display, including photographs of Donnelly's funeral cortege along Hill Street and Chapel Street in 1944."