It is a miracle there is anything left of Dr Noel Browne's papers.

"He was terribly untidy, never knew where anything was. I spent half my time looking for things for him," said his widow, Phyllis. Add to that the fact that "we moved 26 times, if you count the flats" and it should come as no surprise that many of his personal records have been lost.

Yet a substantial collection of material, mainly relating to the former health minister's later career, has been retained and was unveiled yesterday by Trinity College Library in a public exhibition in the Long Room.

The collection covers some 37 boxes of manuscript, ranging from drafts of speeches and articles to letters of support and thanks from members of the public.

One such letter came from a patient of a hospital opened by Dr Browne when he was minister for health in the late 1940s. "I have no doubt that had you not been in power I wouldn't be here now," it read. "It often makes me angry what our countrymen did to you after all you did for the country."

Among the other items on display are election flyers, Clann na Phoblachta and Socialist Labour Party manifestos, and an envelope in which the BCG vaccine was first imported for use by Dr Dorothy Price, a fellow campaigner against TB, in St Ultan's Infant Hospital, Dublin, in 1937.

Mrs Browne said there would be nothing left of her husband's papers if it had not been for a former neighbour in Malahide, Dublin, Ms Kate Noonan, who gathered them together after his death in May 1997.

Three generations of the Browne family were represented at yesterday's event, which was also attended by the Labour TD Mr Michael D. Higgins and the artist Robert Ballagh.