Anthony J Jordan, member of RTAI Dublin South, the biographer who has written books on figures including Winston Churchill, Éamon de Valera and Christy Brown, has donated his literary archive to the National Library of Ireland (NLI).

Mr Jordan, who is from Ballyhaunis, Co Mayo, was in Dublin yesterday for the handover.

The archive includes books on W B Yeats and an early play written by Christy Brown, the writer and painter who had cerebral palsy.

Mr Jordan said: “Some of my most exciting moments of research occurred in this library and I hope that my manuscripts, and the correspondence that has informed my work, inspires future readers and researchers.”

Mr Jordan has worked in special education for a number of decades and was the former principal of the Cerebral Palsy Ireland school in Sandymount, Dublin, where Brown was a pupil.

In 1998, he published Christy Brown’s Women: A Biography Drawing on HisLetters. A large number of Brown’s letters were acquired by Mr Jordan several years after the writer’s death in 1981.

Other items donated to the National Library were The Guiding Light, an early play by Brown, which was transcribed by his brother in three notebooks. A substantial number of letters from Brown’s family and friends are also included.

A number of documents in the archive show Mr Jordan’s correspondence with Daniel Day Lewis, the actor, during filming for My Left Foot in 1998, during which the actor regularly sought out information on Brown. Day Lewis won an Oscar for his performance.

Other documents donated to the library include material relating to Major John MacBride, on whom Mr Jordan has written extensively.

Dr Sandra Collins, director of the NLI, said they were delighted Mr Jordan had chosen to donate his archive to the library where, she said, it would be preserved and accessible for generations to come.