diff --git a/include/wx/wxcrtbase.h b/include/wx/wxcrtbase.h
index 81957c596a..f683ab479d 100644
--- a/include/wx/wxcrtbase.h
+++ b/include/wx/wxcrtbase.h
@@ -643,10 +643,29 @@ WXDLLIMPEXP_BASE wchar_t * wxCRT_GetenvW(const wchar_t *name);
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------- */
 
 #define wxCRT_StrftimeA  strftime
-#ifndef __WXPALMOS__
-/* FIXME-UTF8: when is this available? */
-#define wxCRT_StrftimeW  wcsftime
-#endif /* ! __WXPALMOS__ */
+#ifdef __SGI__
+    /*
+        IRIX provides not one but two versions of wcsftime(): XPG4 one which
+        uses "const char*" for the third parameter and so can't be used and the
+        correct, XPG5, one. Unfortunately we can't just define _XOPEN_SOURCE
+        high enough to get XPG5 version as this undefines other symbols which
+        make other functions we use unavailable (see <standards.h> for gory
+        details). So just declare the XPG5 version ourselves, we're extremely
+        unlikely to ever be compiled on a system without it. But if we ever do,
+        a configure test would need to be added for it (and _MIPS_SYMBOL_PRESENT
+        should be used to check for its presence during run-time, i.e. it would
+        probably be simpler to just always use our own wxCRT_StrftimeW() below
+        if it does ever become a problem).
+     */
+    extern "C" size_t
+    _xpg5_wcsftime(wchar_t *, size_t, const wchar_t *, const struct tm * );
+    #define wxCRT_StrftimeW _xpg5_wcsftime
+#else
+    #ifndef __WXPALMOS__
+        // assume it's always available, this does seem to be the case for now
+        #define wxCRT_StrftimeW  wcsftime
+    #endif /* ! __WXPALMOS__ */
+#endif
 
 #ifndef wxCRT_StrftimeW
 WXDLLIMPEXP_BASE size_t wxCRT_StrftimeW(wchar_t *s, size_t max,
diff --git a/src/common/wxcrt.cpp b/src/common/wxcrt.cpp
index 05909433d2..db16fa9b18 100644
--- a/src/common/wxcrt.cpp
+++ b/src/common/wxcrt.cpp
@@ -29,6 +29,16 @@
 #include <stdio.h>
 #include <stdlib.h>
 #include <string.h>
+#include <wchar.h>
+
+#ifdef __SGI__
+    // wide character functions are declared in std namespace under IRIX
+    using namespace std;
+
+    // and this one is only declared if __c99 is defined which is not the case
+    // for C++ builds, so declare it ourselves
+    extern "C" int vswscanf(const wchar_t *, const wchar_t *, va_list);
+#endif
 
 #ifndef __WXPALMOS5__
 #ifndef __WXWINCE__
@@ -1246,9 +1256,11 @@ void wxUpdateLocaleIsUtf8()
 
 int wxPuts(const wxString& s)
 {
+    // under IRIX putws() takes a non-const argument so use wchar_str() instead
+    // of wc_str()
     CALL_ANSI_OR_UNICODE(return,
                          wxCRT_PutsA(s.mb_str()),
-                         wxCRT_PutsW(s.wc_str()));
+                         wxCRT_PutsW(s.wchar_str()));
 }
 
 int wxFputs(const wxString& s, FILE *stream)