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The Most Famous

RACING DRIVERS from Ireland

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This page contains a list of the greatest Irish Racing Drivers. The pantheon dataset contains 888 Racing Drivers, 6 of which were born in Ireland. This makes Ireland the birth place of the 23rd most number of Racing Drivers behind Denmark and Portugal.

Top 6

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the most legendary Irish Racing Drivers of all time. This list of famous Irish Racing Drivers is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity.

Photo of Joe Kelly

1. Joe Kelly (1913 - 1993)

With an HPI of 45.96, Joe Kelly is the most famous Irish Racing Driver.  Her biography has been translated into 19 different languages on wikipedia.

Joseph Michael Kelly (13 March 1913 – 28 November 1993) was an Irish racing driver and businessman, who entered into the 1950 and 1951 British Grand Prix.

Photo of Brian Shawe-Taylor

2. Brian Shawe-Taylor (1915 - 1999)

With an HPI of 42.08, Brian Shawe-Taylor is the 2nd most famous Irish Racing Driver.  His biography has been translated into 17 different languages.

Brian Newton Shawe-Taylor (28 January 1915 – 1 May 1999) was a British racing driver. He participated in 3 World Championship Grands Prix and numerous non-Championship Formula One races. He scored no World Championship points. Shawe-Taylor was born in Dublin, Ireland, the younger of two sons of Francis Manley Shawe-Taylor (1869–1920), magistrate and high sheriff for the county of Galway, and his wife, Agnes Mary Eleanor née Ussher (1874–1939). His parents were members of the Anglo-Irish ruling classes; he was related to the playwright and co-founder of the Abbey Theatre, Lady Gregory and a cousin of Sir Hugh Lane who founded Dublin's gallery of modern art.Following the murder of the father in 1920 by Irish nationalists, the family moved to England, where Shawe-Taylor attended Shrewsbury School.Shawe-Taylor started racing before the war, winning the Nuffield Trophy in 1939. After the war he raced an ERA, with which he tried to enter the 1950 British Grand Prix. The organisers deemed his car to be too old, but he managed to take part in the race anyway, by sharing the Maserati 4CL of Joe Fry. The following year, he practiced a Ferrari entered by Tony Vandervell at the 1951 French Grand Prix, but ultimately Reg Parnell drove the car during the race.His entry was accepted for the 1951 British Grand Prix, despite the fact that he was still campaigning his old ERA, and he finished the race in 8th position as the top privateer, albeit six laps down on the winner. He also raced in the 24 Hours of Le Mans that year, sharing an Aston Martin DB2 with George Abecassis, finishing 5th. He was later seriously injured in an accident at Goodwood, when he spun the ERA and was hit by Toni Branca. Shawe-Taylor recovered but his career was ended. Shawe-Taylor was the younger brother of the music critic Desmond Shawe-Taylor, and the father of the art historian and Surveyor of the Queen's Pictures, the younger Desmond Shawe-Taylor, LVO.

Photo of Derek Daly

3. Derek Daly (1953 - )

With an HPI of 41.81, Derek Daly is the 3rd most famous Irish Racing Driver.  His biography has been translated into 20 different languages.

Derek Patrick Daly (born 11 March 1953) is an Irish former racing driver. He won the 1977 British Formula 3 Championship, and competed as a professional racing driver for 17 years participating in 64 World Championship Formula One Grands Prix, debuting on 2 April 1978. He scored a total of 15 championship points, making him Ireland's most successful F1 driver, and he also participated in several non-Championship Formula One races. After F1, Daly raced in CART and IMSA, where he achieved much success with Nissan.

Photo of Duncan Hamilton

4. Duncan Hamilton (1920 - 1994)

With an HPI of 40.32, Duncan Hamilton is the 4th most famous Irish Racing Driver.  His biography has been translated into 16 different languages.

James Duncan Hamilton (30 April 1920 in Cork, County Cork, Ireland – 13 May 1994 in Sherborne, Dorset, England) was a British racing driver. He was famed for his colourful and extroverted personality, which often overshadowed his genuine talent. After fighting in the Second World War, he took up motorsport. Although adept in single-seaters, sportscars was where he enjoyed most success, winning the 1953 24 Hours of Le Mans, two Coupe de Paris events, and the 12 heures internationals Reims race in 1956. He retired in 1958 and ran a garage in Bagshot, Surrey for many years. He died from lung cancer in 1994.

Photo of Tommy Byrne

5. Tommy Byrne (1958 - )

With an HPI of 37.99, Tommy Byrne is the 5th most famous Irish Racing Driver.  His biography has been translated into 17 different languages.

Thomas Byrne (born 6 May 1958) is a former racing driver from Ireland. He participated in two Formula One Grands Prix in 1982 with the backmarker Theodore team, failing to qualify for another three. He failed to finish in either of the Grands Prix he started and scored no Formula One championship points. After performing well in the Irish Formula Ford Championship in 1981, Byrne won the 1982 British Formula 3 Championship even though he missed some races while he competed in Formula One. At that time, he also tested a McLaren MP4/1 Formula One car in October 1982 against Marlboro-backed Spirit Racing's European F2 drivers like Stefan Johansson and Thierry Boutsen. During this test he set a time quicker than the works drivers, Watson and Lauda, despite the car being specifically detuned for him and not the other drivers at the test. After a brief return to Formula Three in 1983, where he raced for Eddie Jordan, Byrne moved to the United States and began racing in the American Racing Series in 1986, where he won ten races in 55 starts, both second place in the series record books. He also was the championship runner-up in 1988 and 1989. He raced in the series until 1992 and then retired. Despite his extended career in the States, Byrne never made a Champ Car start. He lives in Florida, and teaches Honda Teen/Adult Defensive Driving, Advanced Defensive Driving, Acura High Performance and Acura Advanced Performance Driving during the race season at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in Lexington, Ohio. He is also a driver coach for Indy Lights team Brian Stewart Racing. He co-authored a book with Mark Hughes which was released in the UK on 8 August 2008, titled Crashed and Byrned: The Greatest Racing Driver You Never Saw. The book won the William Hill Irish Sports Book of the Year for 2009.Byrne was the subject of Seán Ó Cualáin's documentary Crash and Burn in 2016.

Photo of David Kennedy

6. David Kennedy (1953 - )

With an HPI of 35.55, David Kennedy is the 6th most famous Irish Racing Driver.  His biography has been translated into 16 different languages.

David Paul Kennedy (born 15 January 1953) is a former racing driver from the Republic of Ireland. He was one of his country's first Grand Prix drivers, and is widely seen as having helped pioneer the Irish move into international racing.Kennedy has been a prominent driver manager, a popular Formula One TV analyst, a shareholder with championship-winning single seater race teams and a board member at Ireland's Mondello Park Race Circuit.

Pantheon has 6 people classified as racing drivers born between 1913 and 1958. Of these 6, 3 (50.00%) of them are still alive today. The most famous living racing drivers include Derek Daly, Tommy Byrne, and David Kennedy. The most famous deceased racing drivers include Joe Kelly, Brian Shawe-Taylor, and Duncan Hamilton.

Living Racing Drivers

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Deceased Racing Drivers

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Which Racing Drivers were alive at the same time? This visualization shows the lifespans of the 3 most globally memorable Racing Drivers since 1700.