https://sourceforge.net/p/lirc/git/merge-requests/42/

Author: Craig Andrews <candrews@integralblue.com>
Date:   Sat Sep 14 21:03:49 2019 -0400

    systemd: ensure lirc runtime directory exists

diff --git a/systemd/lircd.service b/systemd/lircd.service
--- a/systemd/lircd.service
+++ b/systemd/lircd.service
@@ -8,6 +8,7 @@
 [Service]
 Type=simple
 ExecStart=/usr/sbin/lircd --nodaemon
+RuntimeDirectory=lirc
 ; User=lirc
 ; Group=lirc