Thanks but when I downloaded it the opening tutorial talked about opening it in visual studios I'm probabaly showing myself to be a total fool but I am confused.
The first tutorial explains how set up IDE for Irrlicht engine. (Tutorial explains this for Microsoft Visual Studio C++ 6.0 and .NET.) These are commercial IDEs, but there are also several other IDEs. I personally use Dev-c++, because it is free. (http://www.bloodshed.net/devcpp.html) I suggest you to first read a book about c++ basics and then proceed with the engine itself.