Just to add something, as kernel.dal.net may not always be up at due to the ongoing DDoS attacks, you can find a list of servers
here or see what the netsplit.de bot has been picking up recently at
irc.netsplit.de.
irc.dal.net does work sometimes by the way, but so far I have only seen it connect to broadway-e.dal.net. I have not seen irc.us.dal.net, irc.eu.dal.net or any of the random server pools (except of course for irc.dal.net) connect as of yet.
Regards,