Getting UTF-8 working in Irssi through Screen over SSH

I keep getting asked about this, so I will put it here for reference.

You can usually do it in 4 easy steps:

1. Terminal emulator environment
   
   Ensure your terminal emulator is using UTF-8 encoding. If you're using iTerm on OS X, you can find this in Bookmarks -> Manage Profiles -> Terminal Profiles -> Default.


2. Shell environment
   
   Configure your shell to use the UTF-8 version of your locale. For example, edit your ~/.bashrc file and change or add this line:
   
   export LANG="en_AU.UTF-8"


3. Screen configuration
   
   In your ~/.screenrc, file, add this line:
   
   encoding UTF-8


4. Irssi configuration
   
   In your ~/.irssi/config file in the settings -> "fe-common/core" section, add the option:
   
   term_charset = "utf-8";

You will need to quit irssi, exit the screen session and log out of the shell completely, then load it all back up again.

Now you too can impress your friends by using stylish words and phrases such as touché,

בְּרֵאשִׁית, בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים, אֵת הַשָּׁמַיִם, וְאֵת הָאָרֶץ

and

起
初
　
神
創
造
天
地
。