IrishFurries

IrishFurries (also known as Irish Furries or Irish Furs) is the name given to a regional group of furs in Ireland, with the aim of being a friendly, professional and welcoming community for the entire island of Ireland. The group organises meets both large and small, in a variety of places around the island, with the most common location being Dublin, but with frequent Cork meets, and mini-meets at most Irish anime conventions.

Bran is the official IrishFurries mascot since 2016.

The official website is irishfurries.com. The group also have channels and chatrooms hosted using Telegram, a Facebook group, FurAffinity page, and Twitter.

History
IrishFurries in its modern form has been running since around 2009, when SoFox set up a forum system for furries around the island to use, however meets had been organised and a group established for many years already by this time. The website has evolved considerably since then, with new forum software and design in 2014.

As a group of furs geographically spread across the island, online chat was and continues to be a significant part of the group's presence; originally using IRC (#irishfurs) on FurNet, then moving for a time to Skype, before its current incarnation on Telegram. Currently, there are three official IrishFurries Telegram channels - an announcement channel, a safe-for-work chatroom, and a not-safe-for-work chatroom.

Whilst generally in the past sticking with arranging regular meets for the community, 2017 saw the first IrishFurries "Furry Not New Year" party (or FNNY for short). This is intended to be an annual event, and will be running again in January 2018.

Organisation and meets
The group is managed by committee, with GerMANshep currently chair. Other members include Alystair, Axel, Blue, Mikuro, Mordicai, Talon, Vanyan and Zuki. All act as the moderation team for IrishFurries' Telegram chatrooms and forums, maintain the various profiles and websites, and collectively organise meets and events.

There is usually one main meet per month in the Dublin area; this generally takes place on the fourth Saturday of each month. Location and activity varies; this can include simple coffee-and-art meets, local entertainment venues such as Dublin Zoo, or even in parallel with other public events, such as the Bray Air Show. Regional meets at other locations such as Cork, Galway and elsewhere on the island are arranged less frequently but on a semi-regular basis. Informally, there are often minimeets at anime and gaming conventions such as Akumakon, Kaizoku Con and Q-Con, and any members of the community are encouraged to organise their own meets; these will happily be announced via IrishFurries channels.

Links

 * IrishFurries website and forum
 * IrishFurries on Fur Affinity
 * IrishFurries on Twitter
 * IrishFurries on Facebook
 * IrishFurries Announcements channel on Telegram
 * IrishFurries Chat on Telegram (SFW)