Has the luck of the Irish run out in New York?

IT was a bitter political defeat. Formerly a front-runner for one of the United States’ most prestigious offices, an emotional Christine Quinn accepted her failure to secure the Democratic nomination for the New York mayoral election, and with her vanquished hopes went the last vestige of the Irish grip on Gotham.

Six months ago, this outcome hardly seemed possible, but when she arrived on stage at Chelsea’s Dream Hotel, in her local constituency, just before midnight, and three hours after polls had closed around the five boroughs, it was tempting to conclude that there’ll never be so much as a dying roar to accompany the demise of Irish-America’s political clout in New York.

For so long, Quinn’s ascendancy, seemingly to the highest role in the nation’s biggest city, was a steadily paced coronation, out of step with the normally ruthless speed of careers that rise and fall.