As a commemoration for their anniversary 50th year, RTE has placed an amount of its archive in a free-to-use online source.

The Irish Film & Television Network writes that the new RTE online archive makes available series of audio, video and photographic documents from the last 50 years. Users will have the opportunity to view some of Ireland’s greatest “firsts” - including the first Dail, and, of course, U2’s first television performance.

Different exhibitions on the site, as well as the option to search by popular people provides users with a number of different avenues to explore Ireland’s history over the past few decades.

Material is available for sale for purchase for filmmakers.

On the archive’s website, RTE says that its ambition is “to continue to open up the RTÉ Archives to as broad a public in as many different ways as possible.”

Check out some of Ireland’s most notable cultural and political moments of the past on RTE’s archives here.