[2] In December 2016, Maggie Haberman of The New York Times reported that then president-elect Donald Trump intended to name Burns as the next United States Ambassador to Ireland.

[15] As director of the American Irish Foundation, Burns played a pivotal role in fundraising for the restoration of Marsh's Library at St. Patrick's Close in Dublin.

[15] On March 21, 2013, Brian P. Burns was inducted into the Irish America Hall of Fame alongside former Vice-President (and now President) of the United States, Joe Biden.

[9] In 2013, Burns was inducted as a member of The Order of St. Patrick, a prestigious award created by Heritage Publishing to honor major achievements of Irish Americans.

[12] Also in 1996, Burns received the Eire Society of Boston's Gold Medal award, an honor he shares with other well-known Irish and Irish-American figures, including the author Colm Tóibín and former President of Ireland Mary McAleese.

[22] Dr. Robert K. O'Neill was appointed the first Burns Librarian and over his 26-year career assembled some of the most significant library and archival collections pertaining to the four Irish authors who have thus far been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature: William Butler Yeats (1923), George Bernard Shaw (1925), Samuel Beckett (1969), and Seamus Heaney (1995).

[23] Other notable holdings include the archives of Northern Ireland photojournalist Bobbie Hanvey, comprising more than 75,000 images not only of the paramilitary conflicts and daily life during the decades of "The Troubles" but also some of the most widely circulated photographs of Heaney and other Irish cultural icons.

Each academic year, the Burns Library welcomes a distinguished academician, writer or artist who has made significant contributions to Irish cultural and intellectual life.

"[8] Colmán O'Clabaigh, a Benedictine monk and Burns Scholar of 2016, uses medieval Ireland as his laboratory for his inquiry into the impact of religion on all aspects of life among the common people.

[25] Kate Robinson describes Burns's intention in collecting Irish art as a means "to become involved in the cultural development of his ancestral country and to correct the impression that we were a nation [Ireland] without a visual imagination.

"[24] The collection includes paintings by F. J. Davis, Erskine Nicol, Maurice MacGonigal, Walter Chetwood Aiken, Roderic O'Conor, Henry Robertson Craig, Sir John Lavery, Frank McKelvey, Leo Whelan and Jack Butler Yeats, as well as sculpture by Rowan Gillespie.