John D. Ireland (1932–1998) was born in North London, England. He became a Buddhist at age eighteen and soon began studying Pāli.
From the 1960s onward he was a frequent contributor to the Buddhist Publication Society’s Wheel and Bodhi Leaves series of booklets. But he is perhaps best known for his combined translation, The Udāna & the Itivuttaka (Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society, 1997), in reference to which he wrote to a friend shortly before his death: “I feel I could die contented in the knowledge that I have done something to repay the great happiness the buddhadhamma has brought me in this life.”
