An Irishman has told of how his obsession with collecting election leaflets and posters started almost 40 years ago.
Alan Kinsella has accumulated a massive collection of 50,000 election leaflets and hundreds of posters and badges.
It all first started when the Dublin man went to the polling station as a 12-year-old with his parents in 1982.
The dad-of-two said: “There would have been people canvassing outside the polling stations back then. Barry Desmond was one of the local TDs.
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“He signed his leaflet, “To Alan, best of luck, Barry”. I kept it and that's where it started.”
His family and classmates started to collect leaflets for him as his interest grew.
The IT professional also admitted to writing to parties for them and asking more people to hold on to the material.
Mr Kinsella told the Irish Independent: “For years, it was almost embarrassing to say, 'you know that stuff coming in your door, you wouldn't keep it for me?'."
He now runs the Irish Election Literature blog and hosts exhibitions of his collection at party conventions and political events.
He added: "Most of it is in the attic, but I have an office where I keep it as well. Otherwise it could literally take over the house. It's neat, it's organised chaos.
"No, the 12-year-old in me never thought I would have a collection this massive.”
He said that that the leaflets and posters focus on social issues like divorce and abortion and that “you are able to tell the story of a country from them”.
Mr Kinsella also described his collection as “unusual” because he has material from outside his locality and from all parties.
He said: “I have a friend who would collect everything to do with Roscommon, or friends who would collect only one party's material.
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"I'd take everything, and not just election stuff, I would collect from protests. I have it all catalogued, it's mostly by area."
Speaking about the difference in the current political literature compared to previous decades.
He said: “Candidates used to share a lot more personal details before. Everything is a lot more generic now.
“For the local elections this year, there is a huge number of first-time candidates and it's clear they just have to fill out templates.”
