Ireland was born in Mytholmroyd, West Riding of Yorkshire, England, on 12 June 1930, the son of a Scottish veterinary surgeon. His family later moved to Kirkcudbright, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. He trained as an engineer with Rolls-Royce Limited in Glasgow and London. Ireland was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the King's Own Scottish Borderers and served with the Parachute Regiment in the Suez Canal Zone during 1953 and 1954. In 1955, he transferred to the Territorial Army and was promoted to lieutenant, and by 1958 he was placed on the Reserve of Officers.
Ireland began racing a Riley 9 in 1954. By 1957, he was operating a small engineering firm in Surrey and competing in nationally competitive events. His success in sports car racing led to his Formula One debut for Team Lotus in 1959. In 1960, he won three non-championship Formula One races and finished fourth in the World Drivers' Championship. The 1961 season saw him badly injured in the Monaco Grand Prix, but he recovered to win the Solitude Grand Prix and Flugplatzrennen races. He concluded the season with a victory at the United States Grand Prix at Watkins Glen. Despite this success, Team Lotus boss Colin Chapman released him at the end of the season, favoring Jim Clark.
Ireland continued his Formula One career with teams including British Racing Partnership, Reg Parnell Racing, and Bernard White Racing. Beyond Formula One, he competed in eight editions of the 24 Hours of Le Mans between 1958 and 1966 and was a race-winner in the British Saloon Car Championship. He also participated in American racing, entering a Ferrari in the 24 Hours of Daytona with Mike Hailwood as an intended co-driver, though the car retired early. Encouraged by NASCAR founder Bill France Sr., Ireland also entered the 1967 Daytona 500, where his Dodge's V8 engine exploded.
After retiring from motor racing, Ireland became a journalist in the late 1980s, working for ESPN and contributing to Road & Track and Autocar magazines. He also operated fishing trawlers in the North Atlantic. He authored an autobiography, All Arms and Elbows (1967), and Marathon in the Dust (1970), an account of the 1968 Daily Express London-Sydney Marathon, which he completed with Michael Taylor and Andy Hedges in a Mercedes-Benz 280 SE.
On 30 October 1954, Ireland married Scarborough schoolteacher Norma Thomas, with whom he had two daughters before their divorce in 1967. He married Edna Humphries in 1967. In 1993, he married Jean Mander (née Howarth), a former fashion model who had been engaged to Mike Hawthorn at the time of Hawthorn's death in 1959. Ireland also had a son who died in 1992. He was described by a rival team boss as someone who "lived without sense, without an analyst, and provoked astonishment and affection from everyone." Ireland died from cancer on 22 October 1993, in Reading, Berkshire, while serving as president of the British Racing Drivers' Club.
This article is based solely on the supplied corpus. No external sources were consulted; claims that could not be substantiated against the corpus were omitted under the drop-the-claim rule.