The IRC protocol is a very v e r y old chat protocol, you might have heard about it from the Freenode contraversy. Freenode is one of the oldest and most active IRC networks!
If you are used to Discord or any other chat app you might find switching to IRC is hard. These are the main differences:
Personally, I think that IRC is very comfy to use. It's nice to see so much messages and channels in a very text-based chat.
This is all I have to say for now, might update this later with some more info about IRC.
Want a cool IRC server to chat on? Join rnb/rnbunker's IRC server! You will need a Tor, Yggdrasil or i2P proxy and an IRC client like HexChat. Here are the links:
You can join the #general channel and the #general-shitcord channel for retarded conversations about different topics.
If you don't know anyone ask rnb, IdotMaster or phrl for help
Thanks for reading!