irssi-dev software package provides terminal based IRC client - development files, you can install in your Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus) by running the commands given below on the terminal,
$ sudo apt-get update $ sudo apt-get install irssi-dev
irssi-dev is installed in your system.
Make ensure the irssi-dev package were installed using the commands given below,
$ sudo dpkg-query -l | grep irssi-dev *
You will get with irssi-dev package name, version, architecture and description in a table
| Distro | Ubuntu 16 04 lts xenial xerus |
| Section | Network |
| Package | irssi-dev |
| Version | 0.8.19-1ubuntu1.2 [amd64, i386 |
| Description | terminal based IRC client - development files |
| Sub Section | Net |