Flight Lieutenant Herbert Carmichael "Bird" Irwin, AFC (26 June 1894 – 5 October 1930) was an Irish aviator and Olympic athlete. During World War I, Irwin served in the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS), where he commanded non-rigid airships. After the Great War, the "tall sensitive Irishman" commanded larger rigid airships, initially for the Royal Air Force (RAF) and later on secondment to the (civilian) Royal Airship Works as part of the Imperial Airship Scheme. Both before and after WWI, Irwin also had a successful career as a middle- and long-distance and cross-country runner, and he represented Great Britain at the 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp, Belgium. Irwin's aviation career culminated in his command of the airship R101, the largest airship in the world at the time; he was killed along with another 47 people when it crashed in northern France on a flight from Britain to India. Early life Herbert Carmichael Irwin was born in Dundrum, County Dublin, on 26 June 1894, the second of four sons born to Thomas Frederick Irwin, a solicitor, and his wife Elinor Emily Lindsay Carroll, a daughter of the rector of Dundrum. He was baptised in Taney Parish on 1 August. Irwin's father and two uncles, Herbert Irwin and Major General Sir James Murray Irwin, were noted members of the Dublin University Rowing Club, and one of his grandmothers was a sister of Major-General Sir Herbert Benjamin Edwardes. His godfather was Sir Thomas Myles, a well-known Dublin surgeon, Home Rule campaigner and, later, gunrunner for the Irish Volunteers. Irwin attended St. Andrew's College, Dublin, from August 1909 to June 1913. Athletic career Irwin was a member of the Dublin athletic club Clonliffe Harriers, which commemorates him with a trophy, the Irwin Memorial Challenge Cup. Aged 18, in 1914, he was the Irish four-mile champion, as well as the winner of the Irish senior and junior cross-country championships. After the war, he went on to represent Great Britain at the 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp. At the Games, Irwin finished second in Semifinal 1 of the men's 5000 metres on 16 August, achieving a career best. However, he was unable to repeat his performance in the final on the following day, finishing only twelfth. After the event, Irwin went on to be the Irish mile and four-mile champion in 1921. He was also the RAF mile champion in 1920 and RAF three-mile champion in