From the documentation for the logger plugin, I gather that the IRC component must be of the POE::Component::IRC::State variety.

This plugin requires the IRC component to be POE::Component::IRC::Stat
+e or a subclass thereof. It also requires a POE::Component::IRC::Plug
+in::BotTraffic to be in the plugin pipeline. It will be added automat
+ically if it is not present.
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Change the line:

my $irc = POE::Component::IRC->spawn(
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to

my $irc = POE::Component::IRC::State->spawn(
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and it should work.

The Logger plugin is die'ing when it is being registered, but that is being masked by an eval wrapper in the plugin system. Setting the plugin_debug option to a true value in the spawn constructor would show this.

my $irc = POE::Component::IRC->spawn(
    nick => $nickname,
    ircname => $ircname,
    username => $username,
    server => $server,
    plugin_debug => 1,
) or die "Oh noooo! $!";
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