Ricky Gervais played Belfast a few months back, and on last Saturday he finally brought his current world tour to Dublin, where he made ISIS and IRA comparisons and apparently brought the house down with laughter.

“At least they used to ring and give you 30 minutes to get out,” he said.

“And they’d only shoot you in the kneecaps. ‘Get those jeans off, you don’t want to make a mess of them.’”

The sold out crowd at the 3Arena must have been in fine form, as Gervais tweeted, “Dublin has done it again. Jumped straight to the top of the leader board for best gig of the tour! Cheers.”

The British comic told his fans he was “feeling some tension” about the ISIS-IRA gags, but they were in stitches nonetheless. “Dublin that’s why you are the f****** best. We should have done the DVD here,” he said.

Prior to the show, Gervais checked into the Merrion Hotel and happily signed autographs and posed for pics.