At the very least you want to mask your IP, which generally requires you register with the nick services for the server you are connecting to.

e.g. https://freenode.net/kb/answer/cloaks

I pay for and use irccloud. You can probably use a VPN on top of that if you dont want even then to have your IP. You can also setup a connection bouncer on a server. Basically you tell it what ircd to connect to and it connects to it for you masking your IP. This is what IRCCloud does under the hood tbh.

> How do I hide my IP?

Why would you want to do this? For me IRC is mostly synonymous to technichal discussion on freenode. And my quasselcore runs on cheap rented machine in the cloud. So I honestly fail to see the risk with revealing that IPv4 address, even if it is a public one.

I have not measured whether that machine receives more port scanning than any other, because honestly I did not think that any port scanner would work just through a list of IRC users. Even after thinking of it, it sounds unlikely.