Ireland was born into a Catholic family from Crofton, near
Wakefield. He worked almost entirely for
Roman Catholic patrons, From 1816 to 1818, he was the architect of
Church of All Saints, Hassop, originally built as a private chapel for
Hassop Hall and its owner Francis Eyre. The design was based on
Inigo Jones'
St Paul's Covent Garden. In 1824, he was behind the initial plans for
St Austin's Church in
Wakefield. In 1826, the
Society of Jesus set up a mission there and building work started on the church the following year. For the next two years, he worked on
St Peter and St Paul Church in Wolverhampton and a chapel for the
Dominican Order in
Hinckley. The priory in Hinckley was the centre for the Dominicans in Britain and the chapel was dedicated to St Peter. It was demolished in 1976. Other works included
Holy Cross Church in
Leicester from 1817 to 1819,
St Mary's the Mount Church in
Walsall in 1825. In 1829 he built a chapel at
Tixhall Hall, Staffordshire for the Clifford family; it was dismantled following the sale of the estate in 1840 and rebuilt as St John the Baptist Church at
Great Haywood.
Nikolaus Pevsner, when writing about Catholic churches in Staffordshire praised Joseph Ireland writing, "The finest Catholic churches are Late Georgian Classical. They are the churches of Wolverhampton and Walsall, both of 1825-7 ... both by Ireland." ==Churches==