Her parents were Mikhail Nikolaievich Rayevsky (Kerch, 15 February 1841 – Sevastopol, 10/24 October 1893) and wife (Saint Petersburg, 23 April 1971) Princess Mariya Grigoryevna Gagarina (Tbilisi, 2/16 June 1851 – Cannes, 2 August 1941).

The children of her first marriage were:[6] After Irina was widowed on 2 October 1918, she was married secondly in Geneva, Switzerland, on 7 October 1920 to George, Duke of Mecklenburg (1899-1963),[citation needed] son of Duke Georg Alexander of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (1859–1909) and his wife, Natalia Feodorovna Vanljarskaya, Countess of Carlow (1858–1921).

The children of her second marriage were:[7] She fled with her family after the October Revolution from the Russian Empire first to France, then to Denmark, and last to Germany.

With her second husband, George, Duke of Mecklenburg, from 1923 she lived in Schloss Remplin, Germany until it burned down in the Second World War on 10 April 1940.

After their house in Grunewald was destroyed by bombing in February 1944, they moved by invitation of Margarete of Hohenzollern in March 1944 to Sigmaringen.