Ní Dhuibhne was born in Dublin in 1954. She attended University College Dublin (UCD), where she studied Pure English for her BA, did an M Phil in Middle English and Old Irish, and finished in 1982 with a PhD in Folklore  She was awarded the UCD Entrance scholarship for English, and two post graduate scholarships in Folklore. In 1978-9 she studied at the Folklore Institute in the University of Copenhagen while researching her doctoral thesis, and in 1982 was awarded a PhD from the National University of Ireland (NUI). About her time in Denmark, Ní Dhuibhne states that she "kind of discovered feminism there", because it "was more liberal and advanced politically and in terms of feminism". She has worked in the Department of Irish Folklore in UCD, and for many years as a curator in the National Library of Ireland. Also a teacher of Creative Writing, she has been Writer Fellow at Trinity College, Dublin and is currently Writer Fellow at UCD. She is a member of Aosdána since 2004, an ambassador for the Irish Writers' Centre, and President of the Folklore of Ireland Society (An Cumann le Béaloideas Éireann). Ní Dhuibhne is the Burns Visiting Scholar at Boston College for the fall 2020 semester.