Jesus Irsula was born in Cuba in 1953. In 1966, at the age of thir­teen, he took part in an inter­na­tio­nal pioneer camp in the Wilhelm Pieck Pioneer Repu­blic in the German Demo­cra­tic Repu­blic (DDR).

After trai­ning as a German teacher, Irsula worked as a lectu­rer in German at the Univer­sity of Foreign Languages in Havana from 1973 to 1975. From 1975 to 1979, he studied German language and lite­ra­ture at Karl Marx Univer­sity in Leip­zig, and then worked again as a lectu­rer in German in Havana until 1983.

From 1983 to 1994, Irsula worked as an inter­pre­ter and trans­la­tor for the Cuban poli­ti­cal leader­ship. In this role, he witnessed German-Cuban rela­ti­ons, accom­pa­nied visits by high-ranking poli­ti­ci­ans from the DDR and West Germany, and in 1986 accom­pa­nied Fidel Castro on a trip to the Soviet Union for the 27th Party Congress of the CPSU, where the last conver­sa­tion between Fidel Castro and Erich Honecker took place.

At the same time, Irsula comple­ted his docto­rate in German studies at the Univer­sity of Leip­zig in 1990.