Yeah, I found out what my Ip address was eventually, which was entered automatically with mIRC when I set it up for (using only) the xp firewall).
I tried connecting to alot of the servers that are listed in mIRC, random US IRCnet servers etc, but nothing will work no matter what I select on the list.
My machine blocks connections with everything on loads of programs I have on my machine such as mIRC, even though I do have, as you say, a valid IP address, and switching off all my firewalls doesnt help either.
It says, as an example,
'connection refused, retry #1 irc.dal.net (6666)'
-the number in brackets keeps going up by 1-
Its not where I connect to, its what is blocking my computer from accessing mIRC in general