There are three ways where you can access the IRC channel.
The first way to access the IRC channel is to click "IRC" under links at the left of the page (That one is always present on the forums).
The second way is to go to the mibbit website (
http://mibbit.com/ ) and search for #thedarkempire and join that channel. You could alternatively install the google extension and go through there
The third is to install you own IRC client like mIRC (
www.mirc.com/ ), or HydraIRC (
http://fly.to/hydrairc ), or your favorite IRC client and look up #thedarkempire on the Coldfront Server
Anyways, with this information, I hope to see you guys being more IRC active