Basic IRC Help

You can connect directly to the IRC server with the address irc.217mafia.com using port 6667 or the SSL port or 8067 (the latter is recommended).
If you are using BitchX or X-Chat just type /server irc.217mafia.com 6667
I don't care about any of the other clients out there.

Below is the web interface to the irc server.
Commands begin with / and should be familiar to anyone who has used IRC before - here is a quick summary of the most useful commands.
/join Joins the specified channel. eg: /join #217mafia
/list Lists all the channels on the network (this outputs a lot of information).
/quit Quits IRC totally (same as clicking X in Status window).
/whois Gives some information about a user.
/help Displays more usage/help information.