You're asking on Hacker News if people still use IRC? In this same discussion thread where people are talking about writing Gopher clients? Yes, it's still in

You're asking on Hacker News if people still use IRC? In this same discussion thread where people are talking about writing Gopher clients? Yes, it's still in very wide use. The numbers might be declining as greybeards retire and noobs pick Slack instead, but there's still plenty of us out here.