[2] During the First World War he served abroad,[1] before returning to Canada after the end of the conflict to attend the University of Toronto.
[3] He subsequently moved on to The Globe, for which he worked until 1925 when he resigned following criticism from the newspaper's owner about a piece he had written during the 1925 federal election.
[1] He is credited with having brought a new generation of Canadian artists and writers to prominence at Maclean's, including Pierre Berton, June Callwood, Trent Frayne and Clyde Gilmour.
[4] In 1948 he suffered a personal loss when his wife Jean, whom he had married shortly after leaving university, died of asthma.
[7] She had decided to leave the NFB, and Irwin had initially invited her to dinner to try to persuade her to stay, from which had blossomed a friendship which turned to romance, and they married later the same year.
[4] He served as High Commissioner to Australia, and then as Ambassador to Brazil, Mexico and finally Guatemala before retiring from diplomatic service in 1964.