First of all you have to make sure Irda is enabled in your machines bios. I put the Infrared data port to COM3 and he Infrared mode to SLOW
Next you will have to make sure that your /etc/modules.conf contains the following lines or a configuration matching your configuration.
alias tty-ldisc-11 irtty
alias char-major-161 ircomm-tty
alias irda0 ircomm-tty
below ircomm-tty ircomm
below ircomm irda
below ircomm irtty
You should now be able to start Irda by running
service irda start
Starting IrDA: [ OK ]