The class comprised two ships, Irene and Prinzess Wilhelm; they were the first protected cruisers built by the German Navy.

As built, the ships were armed with a main battery of fourteen 15 cm (5.9 in) guns and had a top speed of 18 knots (33 km/h; 21 mph).

In 1883, General Leo von Caprivi became the Chief of the Imperial Admiralty, and at the time, the pressing question that confronted all of the major navies was what type of cruiser to build to replace the obsolete rigged screw corvettes that had been built in the 1860s and 1870s.

Cruisers could be optimized for service with the main fleet or for deployments abroad, and while the largest navies could afford to build dedicated ships of each type, Germany could not.

The previous practice of building rigged corvettes for overseas use and avisos for fleet defense against small craft would no longer be tenable.

Caprivi, a general whose career had been spent in the Imperial German Army, created an Admiralty Council on 16 January 1884 to advise him, and the particulars of the next cruiser to be built was among the topics discussed.

The council recommended a ship with the following characteristics: sufficient seaworthiness to permit operations in all sea and climate conditions; enough speed to catch or evade likely opponents; cruising radius necessary for long-range operations; and gun power strong enough to defeat expected opponents, but not to exceed 5 to 8% of the ship's displacement.

The document, which laid out Caprivi's thoughts on future naval construction in general, included requirements for 1st- and 2nd-class cruisers.

[3] As work began on refining the proposals, the council set displacement at 3,500 t (3,400 long tons; 3,900 short tons) for the 1st-class variant, armament as a main battery of 15 cm (5.9 in) guns along with three torpedo tubes, speed was to be 17 knots (31 km/h; 20 mph), and the cruising radius must meet a minimum of 5,000 nautical miles (9,300 km; 5,800 mi).

[4] The historians Hans Hildebrand, Albert Röhr, and Hans-Otto Steinmetz remark that the new ships had "all the disadvantages of a compromise," and that they would not prove suitable as a fleet cruiser.

[5] Dirk Nottelmann concurred, noting that the ships "were neither well suited for fleet work nor for the increasing tasks in distant waters, like has been the case for most dual-purpose designs until today.

[8] Irene's propulsion system consisted of two horizontal, 2-cylinder double-expansion steam engines that drove a pair of screw propellers.

Despite the original requirement to be able to steam for 5,000 miles, Dietrich had been unable to significantly increase the coal storage when he enlarged the design.

[9][11] The ships were armed with a main battery of four 15 cm RK L/30 guns in single pedestal mounts, supplied with 400 rounds of ammunition in total.

[16] Both Irene and Prinzess Wilhelm saw extensive service with the German fleet in home waters early in their careers.

Both ships frequently escorted Kaiser Wilhelm II's yacht, SMY Hohenzollern, on cruises throughout Europe; Irene accompanied the Kaiser on a voyage to the Mediterranean Sea in 1889–1890, and Prinzess Wilhelm escorted Hohenzollern for a number of cruises in northern European waters, including two visits to Norway.

Prinzess Wilhelm also cruised in the Mediterranean in 1892, to represent Germany at celebrations marking the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's first voyage across the Atlantic.

[8] Prinzess Wilhelm was one of three ships involved in the seizure of the naval base at the Jiaozhou Bay Leased Territory in November 1897, led by Admiral Otto von Diederichs.