Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is an archaic protocol developed in the days where mail servers, newsgroups and BBSes were common (e.g. predates HTTP and the web). The idea behind the protocol, like others of its time, is that clients would have their textual messages relayed by a centralized server to other clients, with the innovation of IRC being that it supported real-time multi-user communications (BBSes were sometimes single user and mailservers/newsgroups asynchronous).
While it is unfortunate that electronic mail is here to stay, BBS, newsgroups and IRC are luckily just about dead.
