 She holds honorary doctoral degrees from Virginia Theological Seminary, Westminster College in Salt Lake City, the University of Utah, The Church Divinity School of the Pacific, the Salt Lake Community College, and Utah State University.Irish was born in 1940 and raised in Salt Lake City, Utah, daughter of Utah businessman, philanthropist, and University of Utah philosophy professor Obert Clark Tanner.During her upbringing, her family was active in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but she stopped attending church after she left home for college.