Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is a form of real-time Internet chat or synchronous conferencing. It is mainly designed for group communication in discussion forums called channels, but also allows one-to-one communication via private message, as well as chat and data transfers via Direct Client-to-Client.

IRC was created by Jarkko Oikarinen in late August 1988 to replace a program called MUT (MultiUser talk) on a BBS called OuluBox in Finland. Oikarinen found inspiration in a chat system known as Bitnet Relay, which operated on the BITNET.[citation needed]

IRC was used to report on the Soviet coup attempt of 1991 throughout a media blackout.[1] It was previously used in a similar fashion during the Iraqi invasion. Logs of these events, and other events, are kept in the ibiblio archive.[2]