IRQs are interrupts that allow a piece of hardware to access the CPU.
Below is a table of IRQ levels and their common uses.
0: Timer
1: Keyboard
2: Cascade from IRQ 9
3: COM2 or COM4
4: COM1 or COM3
5: LPT2
6: Floppy disk controller
7: LPT1
8: Real-time clock
9: Cascade to IRQ 2
10: Unused though a popular choice for PCs that have network interface cards [NICs].
11: Unused
12: PS/2, bus mouse
13: Math coprocessor
14: Hard disk controller
15: Some computers use this for the secondary IDE controller
