Technically, Europe and North America did kinda-sorta do an IRC split at one point, where the mostly-European IRCnet split off of the subseqently-mostly-North-American EFnet, though both IRC networks are still around and as far as I’m aware can be used without problems from people on either continent.
Between May and July 1996 IRCnet was formed as a European fork of EFnet, when a number of operator disagreements resulted in a group of European admins declaring their independence. The reasons for the “Great Split”[3] as it came to be called, included:
a policy disagreement about how much power system operators should have. IRCnet formed with the basis that there should be a set of rules defining what SysOps could and could not do. This viewpoint was opposed by many of the US-based EFnet servers.
a technical disagreement on whether the network should use timestamping (TS) or Nick Delay as a means to prevent nick collisions, according to Jarkko Oikarinen.[4]
Vegard Engen, one of the European operators, stated[3] that the immediate cause for the “Great Split” was that a major US EFnet hub had been disconnecting irc.stealth.net without warning, and thereby breaking the link to the European servers.
EDIT: Though that said, it’s not like there’s an overall, general geographical split in IRC today, as those are today just two among a number of IRC networks, and not the largest in 2026.
Do not insult the glorious multiplayer notepad!
Technically, Europe and North America did kinda-sorta do an IRC split at one point, where the mostly-European IRCnet split off of the subseqently-mostly-North-American EFnet, though both IRC networks are still around and as far as I’m aware can be used without problems from people on either continent.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRCnet
EDIT: Though that said, it’s not like there’s an overall, general geographical split in IRC today, as those are today just two among a number of IRC networks, and not the largest in 2026.