This paper presents a historical overview of studies on the irradiation behaviour of ultrafine-grained materials produced by severe plastic deformation (SPD), which allows fabricating bulk materials with submicron grain size and nanostructural features, essentially enhancing their strength and functional properties. The dramatically increased interface fraction also provides substantially improved microstructure tolerance and ultrafine-grained material properties for electron, proton, ion or neutron irradiation. Issues related to considering SPD metals and alloys as advanced radiation-resistant materials are discussed.