Thousands of news reports from the 1980s and 1990s are to be made available for viewing on the RTÉ website.

The RTÉ Archives News Collection goes live today, with almost 1,500 news stories filmed between 7 March and 31 December 1985.

New material will then be posted to the site daily, covering the period up to 1999.

The stories were originally recorded on video and have been digitally preserved by RTÉ Archives with the support of the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland.

TV news reports from 1980s and 1990s coming online from @RTEArchives https://t.co/zCsBOflQoX pic.twitter.com/e15XEUg80h — RTÉ News (@rtenews) October 27, 2017

Stories that can be viewed from today include the Kerry Babies Tribunal, Ireland winning the Triple Crown and U2 at Madison Square Garden.

RTÉ Archives digitised 13,332 tapes for the News Collection, featuring approximately 9,000 hours of news content.

The video tapes travelled from Dublin to Amsterdam where they were baked in specially designed ovens to recover the picture and sound quality before final digitisation.

The files are now stored securely and will be managed and preserved for the future as part of RTÉ's digital archive.

Approximately 9,000 hours of news content has been digitised by @RTEArchives. Here's how the process worked: pic.twitter.com/oEbrvwj8IL — RTÉ News (@rtenews) October 27, 2017

Read more:

Analysis: Lots of hair, cigarettes and fascinating journalism

Five standout stories from the RTÉ Archives for 1985

History repeating: Are these stories from 1985 or today?

Visit the RTÉ Archives News Collection