Bob Geldof (left) signs a contract at the National Library of Ireland (NLI) in Dublin with Chairman Paul Shovlin and library director Dr Sandra Collins, as he announced that the Band Aid Trust is donating its archive to the NLI (PA)

Musician and campaigner Bob Geldof has donated a vast archive of material from the Band Aid Africa famine relief effort to the Irish state.

Hundreds of letters from private individuals and well-known public figures, artwork, poetry and musical recordings are among the trove of memorabilia from the 1984 fundraiser given to the National Library of Ireland in Dublin.

Geldof and co-writer Midge Ure's first version of Do They Know It's Christmas? raised £8 million for famine relief in Ethiopia.

They gathered a group of musicians together in 1984 for the charity single. It featured Geldof's fellow Irishman Bono, George Michael, Duran Duran and Bananarama, among others.

It helped inspire Live Aid concerts in London and Philadelphia, which raised millions more.

"This then is our thanks and gratitude to Ireland and the Irish," Geldof said.

Expand Close Bob Geldof at the National Library of Ireland (NLI) in Dublin with Minister for Culture Josepha Madigan and library director Dr Sandra Collins, as he announced that the Band Aid Trust is donating its archive to the NLI (PA) PA / Facebook

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Whatsapp Bob Geldof at the National Library of Ireland (NLI) in Dublin with Minister for Culture Josepha Madigan and library director Dr Sandra Collins, as he announced that the Band Aid Trust is donating its archive to the NLI (PA)

"We want you to use this gift for the benefit of those in whose name we too will continue to work."

Do They Know It's Christmas? was recorded again in 1989, 2004 and 2014, with the most recent incarnation used to fight the Ebola disease outbreak in west Africa.

The archive will be transported from London where it had been in storage. It will be catalogued, preserved, selectively digitalised and exhibited.

It reveals the enormous level of organisation behind Band Aid in which the aid was distributed.

"Eight miles between the richest continent and the poorest there were 30 million people dying in a world of surplus. That was morally repulsive," Geldof added.

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