Jonathan Irwin, bloodstock luminary who founded a charity for severely sick babies – obituary
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
Jonathan Irwin, who has died aged 82, was a leading British-Irish bloodstock personality, auction house supremo, publisher and racetrack executive.
His greatest achievement, however, was in 1997, with his wife Mary Ann O’Brien, to set up the Jack and Jill Children’s Foundation, following the death at 22 months of their son, Jack. The charity provides home nursing care to severely sick children and has, to date, helped more than 3,000 families across the Republic of Ireland.
Debonair, charismatic, driven and articulate, Irwin was only 33 when he was appointed managing director of Goffs, the bloodstock auction house, in 1975. That year, he launched the first ever multi-currency bid board, which was soon to be copied by such leading auction houses as Sotheby’s and Christie’s.
He proved himself a wonderful innovator, constantly coming up with ideas to bring new people into horseracing. In 1988, he oversaw the first run of the Cartier Million race, the runners qualifying by having been sold in the 1987 Cartier Million Sale at Goffs. In one of Irwin’s many strokes of good luck, he pitched the idea to Cartier’s managing director, Anthony Marangos, who accepted the sponsorship deal with the words: “I was that little fat Greek boy you were nice to at prep school.”
Jonathan Hiatt Nicolson Dermot Irwin was born on June 21 1941 in Malvern, the only child of John Irwin, an actor, writer and BBC producer from a Northern Irish protestant family. His mother was the British stage and screen actress, Philippa Hiatt. He was largely brought up, in Buckinghamshire and Holland Park, by his nanny, a ferocious Austrian called Anna. “Although my parents were warm and loving, they were away a lot and frequently busy with other things. They were exciting and unusual, but they weren’t at all the Walt Disney model,” he wrote in his 2014 memoir, Jack and Jill.
At seven, he was sent to Stonehouse prep school in Broadstairs, Kent, where he kept a pet white mouse and a fellow pupil was garrotted by a clothes line whilst riding a donkey. Then followed Eton in unusual circumstances. Irwin’s mother spotted an advertisement in The Times which read: “Any lady who has a son can now pay £250 for his entire education.”
He was admitted to Dr Prescot’s house with 40 other boys, whom he described as mad as hatters, with many a rogue. They included the future writer and Spectator literary editor, Mark Heathcoat-Amory, Lord Harlech’s eccentric and short-lived heir, Julian Ormsby-Gore, and Grey Gowrie, later Earl Gowrie, Minister for the Arts under Margaret Thatcher, who became a lifelong friend. His housemaster’s final report concluded: “Exceptional vitality and very nice manners.”
His father, now married to the Irish-born television quiz hostess Gwynneth Tighe, would have actors such as Tommy Steele, Bob Monkhouse, Joan Collins and Diana Dors round to their small modern terraced house on the Thames at Chiswick (where a speedboat was kept for further entertainment).
At one wild party in 1965 his father offered £500 to anyone who could swim the width of the Thames and back. The offer was taken up by former amateur champion jockey Gay Kindersley, eldest son of Oonagh Guinness, but on the way back he was in danger of being dragged under a concrete barge. Jonathan Irwin dived in and dragged him to safety. “To his credit, my dad coughed up the £500, split two ways,” he recalled.
He enjoyed a brief stint in London as a “runner” for the emerging ATV television station and two terms at Trinity College, Dublin, before he was claimed by his love of the Turf. In 1960, he joined the Tim Vigors Bloodstock Agency in Dublin’s Merrion Square, where he gained a thorough schooling in how to buy, sell and ship horses. At the Kildare Hunt Ball he witnessed his boss Tim Vigors knock the travel writer Paddy Leigh Fermor, who had been dancing irritatingly on the table, across the room, where he collapsed in a corner.
In 1965, Irwin became a publisher, setting up The Irish Horseman, which he sold at a profit some years later. He was by now working for Goffs and overseeing the move from the Royal Dublin Showground in Ballsbridge to their new 75-acre premises in Kill, Co Kildare, the first custom-built bloodstock sales complex in the world.
He spent frequent weekends at Luggala, the magical Wicklow home of Garech Browne, where he befriended the Rolling Stones, Prince Rainier and Princess Grace of Monaco, and the future Taoiseach Charlie Haughey. Of Tara Browne, Garech’s younger brother, he remembers being dumbfounded that, aged 14, he had a full bottle of Irish whiskey at his place at dinner.
In 1964, he married Mikaela Rawlinson, eldest daughter of the British Conservative politician, Lord Rawlinson of Ewell. They had four sons, one of whom died young; in 1989, the couple divorced amicably. He married, secondly, in 1991, Mary Ann O’Brien, from the famous racing family: her father was Phonsie and her uncle Vincent O’Brien. The loss of their infant son Jack to severe brain damage set them on the remarkable path to establish the Jack and Jill Children’s Foundation, which has raised more than 40 million euros from the private sector.
Jonathan Irwin was, by his own admission, “The Ultimate Showman”. His ability to get things done with charm and meticulous organisation won him many plaudits, including Irish and Global Fundraiser of the Year and a People of the Year Award. He raised over 65 million euros for the many organisations with which he was involved. “Ireland has always been a good friend to me,” he said. “I have tried to return the favour as best I could.”
Jonathan Irwin is survived by his wife, as well as three sons from his first marriage and two daughters from his second; a son from the first marriage and two sons from the second predeceased him.
Jonathan Irwin, born June 21 1941, died December 10 2023
