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The midfielder was at the heart of everything good done against Portsmouth on Sunday and Hughes said of Ireland: "Stephen has arguably been our best player all season. He has put in some fantastic performances.
"He makes some fantastic recovery runs but myself and the coaching staff cannot take the credit for the condition he is in because he worked so hard during the summer and came back with a real determination to show that he wanted to be part of what we are doing.
"He has worked exceptionally hard from day one and is reaping the benefits now and so are we."
Hughes also answered questions about the incident earlier in the season where reports claimed Ireland would have been sold before the summer transfer window closed, but he declared: "I was never going to allow Stevie to leave and he has repaid that faith.
"I don't let players leave my Club if I think it would weaken us and that would have been the case."
And those sentiments were backed up Stephen's fellow countryman and Club captain Richard Dunne, who added: “I think he’s really enjoying his football.
“He’s been leading up to it now for the last three or four games and he’s been improving with each one.
“I think the Portsmouth game just topped it off. With all the flair players around him he doesn’t look out of place at all.
“The style of play that we are playing really suits him and the freedom that he’s getting is right up his street. He’s playing with a smile on his face and he looks like he’s really enjoying it.”
In fact the whole team looked as though they enjoyed Sunday’s stroll, but Dunne insists the hard work starts now, particularly with tonight’s tricky Carling Cup tie at Brighton.
“We don’t want to get carried away with everything that’s been going on around the Club, but results like Sunday give us that extra confidence, and hopefully we can carry it on against Brighton and take a step forward in that competition as well
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