Freenode sasl authentication error rcirc

[Bone Baboon]

I am trying to connect to Freenode.  This was working fine but now I am
receiving this error message:

```
*** Notice -- You need to authenticate via sasl to use this server
!!! Closing link: <gateway-information>
    (SASL access only)
!!! freenode: connection broken by remote peer (closed)
```

The IRC client I am using is rcirc an Emacs IRC client.  I have not
changed my rcirc configuration that was working.

I am able to sign into Freenode without any trouble using Freenode's web
irc client.

I have tried adding the `gnutls`, `gsasl` and `cyrus-sasl` packages to
my system configuration and reconfiguring.  These packages do not fix
this problem.

The Emacs version is `27.2`.