He became scholar of his college in 1651, fellow in 1656, and was appointed public reader in grammar in 1659, bursar in 1659 and 1661, sub-warden in 1660, and librarian in 1662.

On the promotion of Walter Blandford to the See of Oxford, he was elected Warden of Wadham College on 7 December 1665, an office which he held for 25 years until his resignation on 7 October 1689.

He declined in November an invitation to dine with the King's special commissioners on the evening after they had expelled the fellows of Magdalen.

Near the turn of the century when he was about sixty years of age, according to Wood, Ironside married a widow of Bristol, née Robinson.

He died on 27 August 1701, and was buried in the church of St. Mary Somerset, Thames Street, London.