25 October 2012 Last updated at 14:24 ET

Northern Ireland Troubles website launched in Dublin

Dr Brendan Lynn, CAIN Deputy Director, and Irish Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Jimmy Deenihan, at the launch in Dublin

Irish government documents which shed light on the start of the Northern Ireland Troubles have been published on a University of Ulster website.

Irish Heritage Minister Jimmy Deenihan launched the digitised CAIN (Conflict Archive on the Internet) archives in Dublin on Thursday.

The site provides source material on the conflict and politics of Northern Ireland from 1968 to the present.

It includes documents on the growing unrest on the streets in August 1969.

The meeting between Northern Ireland Prime Minister Terence O'Neill and Taoiseach Sean Lemass in January 1965 is also documented.

Staff from the University of Ulster and the National Archives Ireland (NAI) have been working together on a small pilot project to provide free access to Irish public records relating to the early years of the Troubles.

The items selected have been drawn from material which is already in the public domain, having been published under the 30-year rule the timeframe within which official documents are kept from the public scrutiny.

The project is to be developed further to allow a wider selection of materials to be made available.