The IRC server we were using up until now has been down for a while now, after having some DNS issues.
I took the liberty of redirecting the frontpage chat page to Freenode (#nwvault) as a replacement; but if anyone has any objections to this, please reply in here.
If you're connecting with your own IRC client, point it at chat.freenode.net, port 6667.
Many thanks, niv!