Although I don't need it, this gave me more success feelings than lirc. Much more.

The basic thing is to enable IrDA support in the kernel

Device Drivers --->
  Networking support --->
    IrDA (infrared) subsystem support  --->
      IrLAN protocol
      IrNET protocol
      IrCOMM protocol
      Ultra (connectionless) protocol
      Infrared-port device drivers  --->
        IrTTY (uses Linux serial driver)
        IrPORT (IrDA serial driver)
        NSC PC87108/PC87338

and here my irda-up script:

/bin/setserial /dev/ttyS1 uart none
/sbin/modprobe nsc-ircc io=0x2f8 irq=3 dma=1
/usr/sbin/irattach irda0