A remake of Vasan's own Hindi film Paigham (1959), it revolves around two brothers Manikam and Kondamuthu and their mill owner.

The soundtrack was composed by S. V. Venkatraman and the lyrics were written by Kothamangalam Subbu, Papanasam Sivan and Pattukkottai Kalyanasundaram.

In 1959, S. S. Vasan, the proprietor of Gemini Studios, began working on a film built around capital-labour relations.

[3] The female cast of Paigham – Vyjayanthimala, B. Saroja Devi and Pandari Bai – returned to star in Irumbu Thirai,[4][5] while Sivaji Ganesan reprised the role originally played by Dilip Kumar.

It was a "coup of sorts" for Vasan to cast Ganesan since the latter had earlier been rejected by the former for a role in Chandralekha (1948), an incident which created a permanent rift between them.