It has a large quantity of Irish and Irish-related material which can be consulted without charge; this includes books, maps, manuscripts, music, newspapers, periodicals and photographs.

The Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media is the member of the Government of Ireland responsible for the library.

The main library building is on Kildare Street, adjacent to Leinster House and the archaeology section of the National Museum of Ireland.

By 1993, the Mount Charles sandstone which had been used to face the library building (as well as that of National Museum of Ireland – Archaeology) had begun to break up through the "precipitation of salts within the fabric of the rock".

[6] The sandstone had been badly affected by the coal-polluted atmosphere in Dublin over the century it had remained in situ, and was replaced in the 1960s by a grey limestone from Ardbraccan, County Meath.

[2] As of 1993, Wyse Jackson noted that "Close examinations of the stone remaining on the National Museum shows obvious decay and exfoliation of the outer layers of the rock, caused by the breakdown of the ferrous cement used to bind the sand grains together".

[2] Wyse Jackson made the note that the same rock had not been broken down by the atmosphere or pollutants in its native County Donegal where a number of buildings constructed as early as 1820 were still extant.

The library purchases content from Northern Ireland, and attempts to collect all publications in Irish, and acquires a limited supply from further afield.

These writings offer an understanding into the influence of the Francis and Hanna Skeffington in early 20th Century Irish culture and thought as well as insight into their family life.