As I tried to create a simple parsing test with irrXML, I started to see that it handles all of the EOLs (End Of Lines) as text, even though it was just a cosmetic EOL. After some searching, I found that a person named Bobby Anguelov had the same problem and that this was intended functionality.
Like him, I think this is something that should be handled by irrXML. But then again, it is open source, so anyone can create the functionality one wants.