Chat / IRC Software question

I am working on incorporating chat software into my website and I was hoping to get some feedback on what language I should write the software in. I provide instructions for connecting with a "popular" IRC client such as mIRC or Pirch, but I wanted to include some web-based software also.

I am leaning towards Java because I dont want to bog down my webserver, and since an applet downloads and runs locally, which will connect directly to the IRC server, there will be little or no excess traffic on the webserver, except to serve the PHP page that contains the applet, and to send the applet software to the user.

However, I am not very proficient with Java as of yet, but I am hoping that will change soon. I can't seem to find any tutorials on creating IRC applets, and I dont really like using other people's software for two reasons:
1. I like the feeling I get when I do something myself.
2. Sometimes freeware or shareware looks a little hokey when it doesnt fit in your site's design.

Are there any other languages I can use that would download to a local machine first, and run from there, such as a Java applet?

If anyone knows of a good language or some good Java IRC tutorials, please, by all means, let me know.

Any feedback would be GREATLY appreciated.

IRC is a rather large protocol to implement ... you could always try a web chat type of thing using php/sql. If you want a client side app but don't want to use Java you could try using TCL, it requires a plugin to be installed on the clients browser.. you can get tcl from scriptics.com

this thread has some good info on web chat.