John Bermingham pulled his final pint as proprietor of the Tipperary Arms bar in Flushing last weekend. In an area that was once home to a thriving Irish community, his was one of the only Irish bars left.

"I'd love to keep it open, but there's only so much business you can generate," said Bermingham.

Since his pub opened in 1995, Bermingham has seen the closure of around ten Irish bars in Flushing, and many more around Queens.

"I came here in 1990 when there were plane loads of Irish coming every day," he said. "It used to be busy every night. When I opened the bar first, there were 15 Irish families in the buildings across the street, now there's one. There are no new Irish coming over here. There's no new business."

Irish bars have been an institution in New York since the time of the famine. Their level of prosperity has always been a key indicator of the overall size and level of activity in the city's Irish community.

In recent years however, the highly documented wave of return immigration to Ireland, combined with an increasing tendency among young Irish travelers to snub the U.S. in favor of immigrant-friendly countries like Australia has proved a crushing blow to their client base.

"Every year there's a batch of new customers turning 21 and moving to New York, and that batch is shrinking," said according to Seán Murphy, founder of New York-based events website murph.com

"The economy and the crackdown on immigration have affected Irish bars. In the early '90's there was a glut of Irish bars, and they were all packed. Now you have the same amount of bars half empty."

In Bermingham's view, the client base for Irish bars is literally dying out.

"There's a lot of older Irish people, but young people are the big spenders," he said. "The truth is that a lot of our afternoon drinkers died, and no one replaced them. We were getting more Asian than Irish customers - unfortunately, they don't drink as much."

In Queens, home to some of New York's oldest and largest Irish-American communities, most bar owners are reluctant to admit how much business they have lost.

But a glance around the half empty lounges provides ample evidence.

"We really haven't seen any changes - business is much the same," according to the owner of Seán Óg's, a pub in Woodside. "The smoking ban has affected business, but we're not complaining."

However, his regulars told a different story.

"It's desperate, compared to what it used to be," said one customer. "The weekends are still busy, but it's dead during the week."

Larry King, executive director of the National Bar and Tavern Association, thinks the smoking ban and the 18.5 percent real estate tax increase that came into force in 2002 have played a large part in damaging the Irish bar trade.

"The smoking ban devastated the small Irish places that were like typical places back home," according to King, who once owned 11 bars around New York, including three in Queens. "Irish bars in Manhattan are doing okay because they still attract all the tourists. Queens took the biggest hit; it's made up of small neighborhoods, it doesn't have that tourist market. I know of 12 places in Manhattan and Queens that have closed in recent years," he said

"The value of real estate is ridiculous," agreed Bermingham. "Leases are no longer retainable. You've got to do a lot more work to make a lot less money."

For many Irish bars in New York's most culturally diverse borough, the only alternative to closure is adapting in order to survive. That means appealing to broader clientele and downplaying the identification with Ireland that was once their biggest selling point.

"We have a very diverse crowd," according to Paul Fogarty, who owns McCann's Pub in Astoria. When he opened the bar six years ago, Fogarty made a conscious decision not to focus on attracting a purely Irish clientele. "You're not going to survive if you just cater to Irish people. Years ago, maybe, but so many Irish people are going home now, it just doesn't make sense."

But as far as staff and regular customers are concerned, losing the traditional Irish bar will be a high price to pay for survival.

"Our customers have helped us out over the years, and we've looked after them. It was a community," said Breda, who has worked as a bartender in the Tipperary Arms since it opened. "If you go to a place for the longest time and you get to know the people, it’s very upsetting to see it close."