time with the B.B.A. (Ireland) Ltd. he was perhaps best known for originating and introducing the Irish Stallion Incentive Scheme which was so successful that it morphed into the European Breeders Fund. He was elected a Member of the Irish Turf Club 1976. Irwin forged many valuable international connections and was largely responsible for the development of the highly lucrative Japanese trade in the late sixties and early seventies. Irish Horseman Magazine Irwin launched Irish Horseman in the 1960s which was to become the country's most popular thoroughbred publication. With a £100 capital and the floor of his flat in Fitzwilliam Square for offices, he and two friends started the Irish Horseman's Magazine to fill a gap in Irish publishing and, having got it on its feet, he sold out to the Farmer's Journal. The Irish Horseman was a platform to promote the Irish horse and this single aim was the overriding reason which resulted in his move to Goffs Bloodstock Sales in 1974. Goffs Robert J. Goff established Goffs in 1866 and was the only thoroughbred auction house in the country. Historically the 'cream' of the Irish yearling crop had up to that time been sold in England, at Tattersalls. In 1974 Irwin was approached by the Irish senator and racing patron Paddy McGrath to manage Goffs, then a small private company on the verge of bankruptcy. In the same year, Goffs were advised by their landlords that their sales complex in Dublin was to be sold. Goffs, who had auctioned at Ballsbridge for more than eighty years, suddenly found themselves siteless when their landlords, the Royal Dublin Society, sold the paddocks to Allied Irish Banks for more than £4 million and then failed to come up with an alternative that satisfied either Goff's or the members of the Irish Bloodstock Breeders Association. Irwin was an early convert to the Myerscough family's brain-child of moving their sales to Kill, Co. Kildare. According to Irwin, "as various negotiations continued, it became clear to me that we could not return to the R.D.S. and be beholden to the same landlords as in the past with no security of tenure. I was in Australia when I heard the news that the R.D.S., whose Professor James Meenan had earlier given his blessing to the Kill project, had executed a volte-face and were back in contention." Irwin felt that action was needed and got