Irssi

Irssi is a modular IRC client for UNIX that only has a text mode user interface. Irssi isn't really even IRC specific anymore, there's already working SILC, http://www.silcnet.org and ICB, http://www.icb.net modules available.

The irssi homepage is http://irssi.org where more information on this program and the latest release, scripts, themes and plugins are available.

Example:

Here is an example way to start the program to connect to the european undernet server: irssi -c eu.undernet.org

Once the program is running, you can join a channel: /join #LinuxQuestions

change your name: /nick LQwriter

leave a channel: /part #LinuxQuestions

close a chat: /window kill

and close the program: /quit