accessing a struct with ->

in some code ive found on the net ,
i see this method to accessing the struct so it can use -> on its members
IRC *ircs = *((IRC *)param);
............................................
i need someone to explain what the param means in this ,,,

would this be the same thing ....
IRC *ircs = new IRC;

param is a variable, the parentheses to its left is a cast to a IRC* type, and then param is dereferenced to get the thing pointed to. However, I don't see how the result can be assigned to a variable of type IRC*. Dereferencing a pointer to an IRC type, should give you an IRC type.