I posted these before. They get things off IRC although I haven't tested them thoroughly yet.
http://dotget.org/
http://www.musirc.com/
Here are some tutorials on IRC and newsgroups
http://www.slyck.com/irc.html
http://www.slyck.com/newsgroups.html
Free newsservers (mostly they suck) Your isp is your best bet
http://www.newsservers4u.xrs.net/
http://www.newzbot.com/