At the very time when the Irish are "ascendant again" in the US, to quote the New York Times on the subject of our current artistic triumphs, the flow of immigrants across the Atlantic is being choked off by new laws. But is the traditional kind of Irish immigration a thing of the past anyhow?
Is there now a new Irish migrant: "The mid-Atlantic dual citizen maintaining business interests in both the US and Ireland?"
This is a question raised in a new book on Irish immigrants by one of that number, Ray O'Hanlon. He is a former Irish Press journalist, now with the Irish Echo newspaper which serves the Irish-American community in New York and surrounding areas.
The book covers the period from the 1980s, when young well-educated Irish fled the recession at home, to the booming 1990s, when both the Irish and American economies hit new heights.
This was the time of The New Irish-Americans, as the book just published by Roberts Rinehart is titled.
The troubles in Northern Ireland from 1969 and their effect on Irish-America are touched on by O'Hanlon, who focuses mainly on the immigration story.
A new Irish-American newspaper, the Irish Voice, sprang up in 1987 to capture the new market and kill off O'Hanlon's Echo, seen as catering for an older generation.
The Voice, under Niall O'Dowd, would address the issues which concerned the newcomers and take on the conservative Ancient Order of Hibernians and GAA and the Catholic Church when they showed they were out of touch with the new Irish.
The battle between the AOH organisers of the St Patrick's Day Parade and the Irish Lesbian and Gay Organisation over their demand to march would symbolise the generation gap. For the Voice this was a crusading issue. For the Echo it was at first distasteful.
Yet 10 years later the two newspapers flourish. A rejuvenated Echo survived the challenge and the Voice settled down and drew support from the older as well as the younger immigrants.
It's an uplifting time to be Irish in the US. Media critics laud the achievements of Irish writers, dramatists, musicians, dancers and film-makers. The Celtic Tiger economy is admired and analysed for its success by the business pages.
The role of President Clinton in the Northern Ireland peace talks is universally praised by his friends and opponents alike. The White House is open to a stream of Irish visitors from North and South. The days when the older Irish-Americans had to be weaned off support for the "armed struggle" by Irish diplomats are long gone.
Governor Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania, one of the wealthier states in the US, is soon to lead a trade mission to Ireland to attract investment from Irish-based hitech firms and create more jobs.
What an amazing turnaround in the traditional relationship.
Yet just a decade ago, the Irish government and Irish-American organisations were almost down on bended knee seeking visas and green cards for the army of Irish "illegals", or "undocumented" as they were also called, so that they would not be thrown out of the US.
Ray O'Hanlon gives the first detailed account of this struggle as it was fought on the floor of Congress, urged on by the new Irish Immigration Reform Movement from New York and, more discreetly, by the government and Embassy in Washington. Senator Ted Kennedy played a vital role, but back in 1965 he had also worked to end the quota system which had given the Irish virtually unlimited access to the US.
The new system, based on reuniting families, worked against the Irish when emigration resumed with high numbers in the 1980s. The piecemeal amendments have allowed relief in the form of the so-called Donnelly and Morrison visas, and more recently the Schumer visas.
There are still undocumented Irish immigrants; although no one knows how many, their plight is more serious than that of their predecessors because of the more stringent anti-immigrant laws passed here in 1996-97.
But it can be argued that those who now break US immigration laws and overstay have to accept the consequences, as do those who break Irish laws. Why should the Irish get special treatment? is a question often asked by those who are grappling with the far more serious problem of illegal Hispanic immigrants.
The new kind of "Mid-Atlantic dual citizen", to use O'Hanlon's term, does not need a green card. They fly over and back from Ireland setting up their deals, putting on their productions, making their programmes, keeping in touch by fax-modem and email.
As the Irish-American writer, Pete Hamill, writes in a foreword to O'Hanlon's book, "New York and Dublin are now suburbs of each other". But Hamill also says the story of Irish immigration to the US is not over and this is a "situation report".
O'Hanlon wonders what will happen if "the pool" of new Irish immigration is not replenished and first-generation Irish become rarer even as the cultural and business links across the Atlantic intensify.
Niall O'Dowd believes that Irish immigration comes in 30year cycles - the 1920s, the 1950s, the 1980s. Have we to wait for 2030 when the Irish will be back to raise hell again?