Northern Ireland

NUI Galway to launch archive of former ombudsman and leading Down GAA figure Maurice Hayes

The Maurice Hayes archive will be launched by NUI Galway on March 12. Picture by Hugh Russell
The Maurice Hayes archive will be launched by NUI Galway on March 12. Picture by Hugh Russell The Maurice Hayes archive will be launched by NUI Galway on March 12. Picture by Hugh Russell

SPEECHES, correspondence and records spanning the decades-long career of former ombudsman and leading Down GAA figure Maurice Hayes are to be opened to the public through an archive at the National University of Ireland Galway.

The extensive collection, consisting of 64 boxes of papers, includes material relating to the late Killough-born Gaeilgeoir's membership of various working parties, commissions and conventions.

There is also material relating to local government, the GAA, his time at the Department of Health and Social Services and source material for his autobiographies.

The former high-ranking Stormont official and policing reformer died in December 2017 aged 90.

The archive will be officially opened on March 12 by Lord Chris Patten of Barnes, the former governor of Hong Kong, who worked alongside Mr Hayes in the late 1990s when the Tory peer headed the commission on the reform of policing in the north.

It will be stored alongside the university's other collections relating to Northern Ireland, including those of civil rights activist and human rights lawyer Kevin Boyle, intermediary Brendan Duddy and Republican Sinn Féin leader Rúairí Ó Brádaigh.

According to NUI Galway, there are powerful direct connections between the Hayes papers and the other collections, most notably the private diary he kept of his role in public peace talks in 1975 at the same time as Brendan Duddy was keeping his diary of the secret talks with the IRA that proceeded in parallel.

NUI Galway president Professor Ciarán Ó hÓgartaigh said the university was honoured to hold the papers of a "great Irishman and great European".

"A scholar, a public servant, a peace-maker, Maurice was respected by all communities across the island of Ireland and his papers offer researchers and students a unique perspective on Ireland at a time of great social and political change," he said.