Note: Any questions can be asked of me on AIM, MSN or in PMs, I am willing to anyone set this up who wants to, even if I have to explain it step by step individually. This may not be the best explanation, so if I see something that need explained better I will fix it so let me know.

What is IRC you ask me?

It stands for Internet Relay Chat, and is basically a big network of chat rooms. A lot of sites have chat boxes (we may after I write this, but I'll continue) but it can be easily moderated better (to prevent spammers) and is a lot of fun, and real time.

first off, you need a client, Here

You can click any of the links, it's all the same thing. It may ask you to register later, but it should work and if it does stop let me know (I know how to get around this easily)

Now, to explain IRC better, this is the guide that the server I run off of uses. The software part and be skipped, as you already have it when you got mIRC

Newbie Guide to DALnet

Follow that you should be able to connect with no problems. That will explain a lot of basic commands and such, but joining a server on mIRC can be a bit more simple. When you first open the program, you should get a box that says connect. You may enter any information you want, but you will want a nickname, this is what you will go by.

When you get all of that entered, you can to go to the "servers" tab on the menu and find DALnet, and select any server from that, it does not matter. Once you do that, click select and then close out of that menu. You then click the small lighting bolt symbol just below the file menu, and you should connect to the server (it can take a minute.)

Once you do this, you should register your nickname, you can do so following this.
Register your Nick

If you need to change your nick before hand, you can do so with /nick newname

You then need to "identify" yourself with the server, you can do this after you confirm the process by typing: /nickserv identify password

Once all of this is golden, and even if you did not register, you can then type /join #TortallLandscapes and you should join the channel.

If you want to make things a bit easier on yourself, there is the auto perform option. To get to this click on file -> select server. From there select options on the left, and then perform. On Network, click Add (if Dalnet is not already there) and find/select it.
You can then type in /identify password then hit enter and the /join#TortallLandscapes and it will automatically identify and join the channel every time you connect to the server