Payback's a bitch for all those stupid "Mick" jokes.

An Irish Taste for Real Estate in Manhattan

By PATRICK McGEEHAN
Published: May 8, 2007

They live an ocean away, but that has not stopped the Irish from lining up to buy condominiums in Midtown Manhattan, often years before they are built.

In some cases, entire buildings or large blocks of apartments in unfinished high-rises are being sold to Irish investors hungry to own a piece of New York City.

Neil McCann, an entrepreneur in Belfast, joined the rush of would-be Manhattan landlords last year when he said he signed a contract to buy a one-bedroom apartment near Gramercy Park for $600,000.

“It’s an Irishman’s dream to be able to go to Manhattan and be able to buy property there,” said Mr. McCann, 36, who added that he hoped to buy more New York apartments.

With a weak dollar, Mr. McCann said, the New York apartments are relative bargains compared with real estate in Ireland and Britain.

After a long economic boom that earned their country the nickname the Celtic Tiger, the Irish are flush with cash and searching the globe for places to invest it.

The westward flow of money “seems to be another example of how, in the wake of the Celtic Tiger, the relationship between Ireland and the United States has flipped,” said Linda Dowling Almeida, who teaches Irish studies at New York University.