Material written by a former Catholic Primate who helped end the first IRA hunger strike is to go online this week.
Archbishop of Armagh Tomas O Fiaich rose to prominence after likening 1981 republican hunger strikers' conditions to the plight of homeless people in Calcutta.
His archive will be among thousands of records available on the internet on the Ark social and political records website.
Project organiser Professor Robert Miller said: "This material has great potential for addressing issues of reconciliation and the study of violence, both for comparative research and to help promote the peace process in Northern Ireland."
The Belfast Linen Hall Library's collection of political pamphlets from the Troubles will be uploaded as well as broadcasters' archives.
Cardinal O Fiaich was born in south Armagh and became Archbishop of all Ireland in 1977. He visited the Maze Prison, near Belfast, during the dirty protest when prisoners wiped excrement on the walls of their cells and refused to wash in protest at the withdrawal of special category status for IRA prisoners.
The Conservative Party, led by Margaret Thatcher, refused to concede to republican demands, which included the right to wear their own clothes and avoid prison work, free association and organising their own education as well as one visit and letter a week.
When hunger striker Raymond McCreesh died, Archbishop O Fiaich said he would not have seen the inside of a jail but for the abnormal political situation and asked who was entitled to label him a murderer.
The collection also includes transcripts of research interviews and observation notes, video and audio recordings, photographs and other memorabilia.
The catalogue is available at www.ark.ac.uk/qual/conflict/