MARTIN KIELTY / 01 SEP 2015



Brother Donal tells how late-night phone call from Stones led guitarist to believe he faced terror threat


Irish blues-rock icon Rory Gallagher feared a late-night phone call from the Rolling Stones was a terror threat from the IRA.

Stones keyboardist Ian Stewart phoned the Gallagher house in Cork in January 1975, while the Irish Troubles were at their height.

And Gallagher – who died in 1995 – worried that he was about to be kidnapped.

His brother and manager Donal tells the Sun: “It was a really scary time in Ireland. Paramilitaries were kidnapping people. So when the phone went off after midnight, and a strange voice asked if Rory Gallagher was there, we got very scared.”

The guitarist spent four days rehearsing with Mick Jagger and co, with a view to replacing Mick Taylor. But he ultimately decided to focus on his solo career, leaving the door open for the Faces’ Ronnie Wood to join up.

Donal recalls: “They got on brilliantly – but we’ll never really know what happened.”


http://classicrock.teamrock.com/news/2015-09-01/rory-gallagher-s-ira-kidnap-fear...

Yes, I heard that story before, Rory without any doubt is one of the best! The Irish Tour was great, Taste was great, Rory too