Mr Justice Robert Lowry, later Baron Lowry, “dislikes Jews as much as he dislikes Catholics”, an official in the Department of Foreign Affairs was told in 1985 by the late Belfast lawyer Paddy “PJ” McGrory.

The document, among records transferred to Ireland’s National Archives in the 2025 annual release of State records, recounts a conversation between the pair concerning judicial appointments in Northern Ireland.

Mr McGrory is said to have told Department official Daithí Ó Ceallaigh that Ronald Appleton was widely expected to be appointed to the High Court bench after leading the prosecution of INLA head Dominic McGlinchey, but was disadvantaged by being Jewish.

Mr Justice Lowry was lord chief justice from 1971 to 1989. Mr Appleton continued to work as a senior prosecutor in Northern Ireland until 1999 but was never appointed as a judge.

Another newly-released document shows that the Northern Ireland Office privately accepted that it should have offered protection to Rosemary Nelson, who was murdered by loyalist paramilitaries in 1999.

The NIO’s permanent secretary, Joseph Pilling, told Irish government counterparts that Ms Nelson would probably not have accepted RUC protection, but “with the benefit of hindsight the NIO ought perhaps to have actively sought her out on this”.