The historical resource is made up of more than 20 boxes of manuscripts, documents, photographs and political ephemera spanning Mr Logue’s life and career from the early 1970s to the years following the Good Friday Agreement.

Speaking at the conferring ceremony, Mr Logue said: “A request from University of Galway to donate one’s archives to it is a huge honour. Its reputation as an archive of distinction is worldwide and the scale of access by students and scholars remarkable. Its attention to material from over the last 50 troubled years in Northern Ireland is unparalleled.

“It is a privilege to have my papers placed there.”

The archive includes a letter Mr Logue wrote to Séamus Mallon on the day of the Omagh bomb, 15 August 1998, outlining the immediate risk to peace. He wrote: “Word is just coming in of the utter horror of Omagh… our task remains to give voice to that overwhelming vote [The Good Friday Agreement], the bombers’ task is to render it speechless”.

Also included are multiple manuscript and annotated drafts of Mr Logue’s testimony to the Saville Tribunal and his actions and memories of civil rights marches and events in Northern Ireland, leading up to and including Bloody Sunday.

The Logue archive presents an important new collection that will enable new studies and understandings of the political, social and economic development of Northern Ireland, as well as important links with Europe, the university said.

Professor Ciarán Ó hÓgartaigh, president of the University of Galway, said: “University of Galway has a great tradition of preserving important archive material for both research and the public and Hugh Logue’s papers going back to the 1970s are a huge addition to that legacy.

“We are even more pleased to be able to honour Hugh Logue and recognise the huge contribution he made to the quest for civil rights, peace on our island and a more prosperous future for all communities. University of Galway places great store on working for the public good — Hugh Logue’s career and life epitomises that.”

Other documents in the Logue archive contain early political and election material from his successful election to Westminster in 1973; SDLP policy papers in the 1980s and ’90s; papers from his work with the Irish Commission for Justice and Peace which offer new insights into its work to resolve the 1981 hunger strikes.

The archive also includes key papers from his early work with the European Commission in the 1990s, including the Delors taskforce and the EU Peace and Reconciliation Fund, both PEACE packages and European Science and Technology for regional development.