ERC is an IRC client. It is included in Emacs as of version 22.3 QuickstartStart ERC with M-x erc. You will be prompted for a server, port, and nickname. To avoid entering server info every time you run ERC, you can specify details in your InitFile like so: ;; Set our nickname & real-name as constant variables (setq erc-nick "cowgirl" ; Our IRC nick erc-user-full-name "Moo C") ; Our /whois name ;;