Wasn't IRC always federated? There were different networks, but each network was a federation of independent servers.owmed by independent operators as far as I understand...

I don't believe so, not in the strictness sense.

> A federated network is a system where independent networks, servers, or organizations agree to follow common standards so they can talk to each other without giving up control to a single central company.

In traditional IRC networks, you end up forming a spanning tree of servers that belong to a common name, "the network". However control remains in the hands of the operators of that network.