Analysis:The ties that bind Ireland and the US are not being reinforced by a new wave of immigrants, writes Mark Hennessey.
IN THE years before the Famine, and after, the Irish came to Pennsylvania, struggled and endured in the mines and steelworks and eventually overcame obstacles thrown in their way.
The memory is etched deep into their descendants' consciousness, where family, faith, tradition, community and a deep sense of being Irish-American are held dear.
Last Sunday, 1,400 Friendly Sons of Saint Patrick men came together in Scranton, as their fathers, grandfathers and great-grandfathers have done for more than 100 years. The top table reflected the path taken by so many Irish-Americans: filled as it was by priests, monsignors, bishops, judges and politicians, including the Governor of Maryland, Martin O'Malley.
Greeting Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, Democratic Senator Bob Casey, himself a member of the Friendly Sons, remembered "struggle and triumph, and an abiding allegiance to faith and family. And we have an enduring belief - and we have had to believe this over many generations - in the promise of tomorrow," said the first-time senator.
Hundreds return home for the annual dinner, which has been addressed by many significant Irish and Irish-American figures during its history, including Robert Kennedy in 1964.
To the eyes of many in Ireland today, the all-male black tie gathering, with beer bought by the case, would no doubt be seen as a cross between Boys Town and The Quiet Man; an image in search of a cliché.
Yet, the sense of togetherness they clearly share; the intensity of feeling for their heritage, and, to an extent, for an ancestral homeland often unseen by many of them is real, and moving.
Such feeling, reflected in a thousand towns and cities around the US, has given the Irish a political voice in the White House and Capitol Hill, which other nations would beg to match.
And, though eaten bread is quickly forgotten, the role of Irish-Americans - such as Ted Kennedy, Richie Neal, and a host of others - on Northern Ireland is deserving of a place of honour.
Today, however, the ties that bind Ireland and the United States are not being reinforced by new generations of Irish emigrants. Just 4,000 Irish have secured Green Cards in recent years; the numbers winning lottery visas can be measured in the dozens.
The numbers of "undocumented Irish", as they are called, could be anywhere between 3,000 and 50,000, though the Government believes the figure to be somewhere in the middle.
Speaking in Washington, Ahern was unusually blunt: the immigration lobby who argue that an amnesty for "the undocumented" or a special deal for the Irish can be won are being "dishonest".
For Ahern, these are strong words, and there is now clearly some rancour or, at the very least, frustration in the relationship between him and those representing the undocumented.
Ahern's remarks were not left for long without a clearly annoyed response by Niall O'Dowd, the editor of the Irish Voice newspaper and head of the Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform.
In Ahern's view, a special immigration deal for Ireland cannot be secured; nor can an amnesty be secured for those living illegally in the US while they remain there. Instead, he is investing his short-term hopes in a two-way visa deal, which would offer 18- to 30-year-olds the right to live and work for 15/18 months or so in each other's countries.
The ambition is not to win visas so that people can build permanent lives in the US but, rather, that the river of connection between the two countries can be replenished by shorter-term visitations.
If secured, such a deal would offer perhaps as many as 5,000 "super-J1" visas from the off, with more later on, and holders would be entitled to renew them once, thus offering three years in the US.
The immigration lobby disagrees. And it argues that it has been right twice before when the Donnelly and Morrison visa regimes were won without early support from the Irish Government.
Twenty years on from those successes, however, the landscape has changed. Twelve million "illegals" now live in the US; the attitude to foreigners has hardened; and the economy is in trouble.
The advantage of Ahern's "super J1" proposal is that it can be agreed with the White House - though not perhaps while George Bush remains in it - and does not need congressional sanction.
Either way, nothing much is expected to happen until Bush departs, if only because any concession to the Irish - however small - would infuriate the now much more electorally important Hispanics.
Irish-Americans' votes for the White House will not turn on immigration; the pressure from below from Irish-born illegals that might make them do so is not there in the numbers of 20 years ago.
The Bronx and Woodside in New York, and a hundred other districts, are no longer filled with the accents of 32 counties as they were once. Where once there were 17 GAA clubs there are now three.
"How do you tell a Salvadorean kid serving in Iraq - and we have many of them who are - that we won't legalise his parents, but that we will offer a deal to the Irish," said one Republican this week.
Though he may well be right, Ahern, in some ways, is adopting a more conservative approach than is held by some Irish-Americans who are infuriated with the tactics and tone of O'Dowd and the Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform.
While supportive of the short-term visa plan, some in this camp believe that full visas can be secured next year once the White House's new occupant is known - though not in numbers on a scale with the past.
Republican presidential contender John McCain favoured a radical Bill to tackle immigration: and nearly destroyed his hopes for the White House in the process.
Yet, Irish-Americans supporting McCain believe that if he is elected he will try again, and that similar moves would be made by Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama.
However, the economy will decide all. Problems in Ireland will make the US a more attractive option for those in search of change. Problems in the US will make it more difficult to let anyone in.
Mark Hennessy is a political correspondent withThe Irish Times and travelled to the US this week with the Taoiseach