Alright, so I've been using IRC for some time now (bout three years?), I have some recommendations for clients.
mIRC:
It's shareware, but you can use it past the 31 days.. It just nags you more every time you start it up
Classic IRC client.. I think everyone started out on mIRC.
Very scriptable.
http://www.mirc.com---
KVIrc:
My personal favorite.. It's a bit harder to set up than mIRC.. but if you have it set up correctly it has a lot of neat features.. like color-coded nicks for example.
It's open source
so no nag screens <3
Also scriptable, but not as easily..
http://www.kvirc.net---
X-Chat
Another open source client.. I used this one for a while.. Don't like it as much as KVIrc.
Also scriptable..
http://www.silverx.infoAnyways, there's a few clients I'd personally reccomend. The last two are available on Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, FreeBSD, etc. mIRC is Windows-only.
<3John