Outside Ireland, the society provides relief and humanitarian services in response to natural disasters and in regions of conflict.

The City of Dublin Branch of the British Red Cross Society was established in August 1914 on the outbreak of the First World War at a meeting convened by the Lady Aberdeen, wife of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and presided over by the Lord Mayor of Dublin, Lorcan Sherlock.

[6] The interlinking of national military and Red Cross organisations complicated operation during the Irish revolutionary period.

[8] The official [British] Red Cross also operated in the Rising, known as "VAD nurses" (Voluntary Aid Detachments) to distinguish them from the republicans.

[10] The Spanish Civil War (Non-Intervention) Act 1937, which prohibited Irish involvement in the Spanish Civil War, made an exception for units certified by the government as "Red Cross units" where "such unit is organised by or is working under the auspices of a society or organisation (whether established in Saorstát Eireann or in another country) having as its object or one of its objects the furnishing of volunteer aid to the sick and wounded of armies in time of war".

[15] In the aftermath of the Second World War, the Irish Red Cross sent a team of 100 to staff a field hospital in Saint-Lô, France, including Samuel Beckett as an interpreter and storekeeper.

[19] In the Arms Trial of 1970, it emerged that funds from an Irish Red Cross bank account had been channelled without the society's knowledge to the nascent Provisional IRA.

The trial acquitted Charles Haughey, who testified that, when it became clear that the Irish Red Cross would not be permitted to operate in Northern Ireland, money was for relief of victims of sectarian violence was transferred instead to individuals, whose later actions were outside his control.

[21] In 1993, IRCS council member Jim Walsh was quoted in an article in The Irish Times criticising the society, despite having been directed not to give an interview.

Village magazine commented that a small number of long-serving volunteers on the executive committee governed the society, with the paid staff mere functionaries.

[28] Wardick had revealed that €162,000 collected locally for the 2004 Asian tsunami had remained unspent in a bank account years after the event.

In 2010, an internal enquiry into Wardick's allegations found other such bank accounts, and proposals to overhaul the IRC's management were discussed in the Dáil on 15 December.

[35] This included a reduction from one-third to one-tenth in the ratio of political appointees on the IRCS council, previously a source of criticism from the ICRC.

[52] The first-aid services section of the society is organised into regions, areas, branches and units for command and administration purposes.

In this way the Red Cross differs from other organisations like Civil Defence Ireland, which is divided according to local council areas.

While the events organizers are normally charged a fee, this money however does not go to the people on duty but rather to help fund the activities of the local branch.

Locally services range from "meals on wheels" to home visits and transport of the elderly, to nationally disaster relief such as in the wake of the flooding in Ireland in 2009.

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