The Lifelines project began in 1985 when English teacher Niall MacMonagle suggested to his Fifth Year class in Wesley College to write to well-known personalities to choose a poem and write about why he/she likes their chosen poem in aid of charity. The students put together several anthologies of poems with contributors such as Seamus Heaney, Alan Hollinghurst, Christopher Ricks, Martin Amis, Ian McKellan and Ben Elton. This collection comprises of correspondence, promotional material, photographs, and posters relating to the Lifelines Project. Correspondents include Margaret Atwood, Sebastian Barry, Kenneth Branagh, A. S. Byatt, Jilly Cooper, Emma Donoghue, Garret Fitzgerald, Brian Friel, Sir John Gielgud, Seamus Heaney, members of the British Royal family, Neil Jordan, Jeremy Irons, Michael Longley, Thomas Kinsella, Sue Miller, Iris Murdoch, Eugene McCabe, Graham Norton, Edna O’Brien, Joseph O’Connor, Jacqueline Onassis Kennedy, Annie Proulx, J. K. Rowling, Mary Robinson, Vikram Seth, Fiona Shaw, Margaret Thatcher, Sue Townsend, U2, Fay Weldon and others.