[citation needed] An article in a Belfast daily newspaper stated: "Rory Gallagher never forgot Northern Ireland, he returned throughout the '70s when few other artists of his calibre dared come near the place.

Speaking about the Irish tour album keyboardist Lou Martin said "Albums were always done in a rush because we were on the road so much, and then we’d come back to London and it could be two weeks – like Blueprint was done in two weeks – and that is ridiculous,... but Irish Tour was an absolute highlight,... the band came to fruition in the Calling Card days, by that time we were well seasoned … everybody knew everybody else’s style of playing...

He wasn’t at his most comfortable or happiest, I mean a lot of people really adapted to it really well like The Allman Brothers or Little Feat.

[7] The day before Gallagher's scheduled concert in Belfast ten bombs went off at various locations around the city.

A local Belfast journalist writing to describe the concert and the feeling said: I've never seen anything quite so wonderful, so stirring, so uplifting, so joyous as when Gallagher and the band walked on stage.

He originally planned to use it for a television special, but he later found the footage so good that he released it as a theatrical motion picture.