The Library is one of many built in Ireland funded by the Carnegie Trust. Andrew Carnegie himself was born in 1835 at Dunfermline in Scotland, the son of a handloom weaver. The general economic downturn in 1848 reduced the family to poverty and they emigrated to the United States.

Carnegie was hard working, shrewd, far-sighted and fortunate. As he made more and more money he invested it first of all in railroads and then in iron and steel. His company, Carnegie Steel, had annual profits of $40m, of which his personal share was $25m. Then, this amazing man sold his company for $1/4 billion and devoted the rest of his life to philanthropic activities. His beliefs, which came to be called 'the Gospel of Wealth', were briefly that a man who has accumulated great wealth is obviously an exceptional person; it is his duty to use his surplus wealth for the improvement of mankind. 'A man who dies rich dies disgraced,' he snapped. And he proceeded to put his ideas into practice by distributing his own surplus wealth of $350m.