one of the things you say you want it an IRC function. you may like to know that we have a page on wikinews which allows users to easily access CGI:IRC from the wiki page.
But this method still requires using the IRC function on wikizine.org. I wouldn't be interested in off-loading our IRC traffic (small as it may be) onto another website without contributing in some way to it's operation. This does, however, solve the problem of creating an IRC client that is more accessible.
--Andrew Whitworth