By Tom deignan

SO, the St. Patrick’s season is upon us. This is no longer about just one day anymore, as anyone who notices all the Irish-themed concerts, books and other events leading up to March 17 can tell you.

Another unavoidable fact of the St. Patrick’s Day build-up is the annual debate about what it means to be Irish in America. There will be the parade controversies pitting the Irish angle of St. Patrick’s Day against the Catholic angle. There will be debates about drinking and stereotypes and a just peace in Northern Ireland.

This, of course, comes as the 2008 U.S. presidential race has kicked off, with Barack, Rudy, Hillary and others already looking for votes. As hard as it is to identify, the Irish Catholic vote remains as prized as it is elusive in the 21st century.

This past month, however, the New York Irish politicians in the news seem to have stepped out of the 19th century. They are old fashioned Democrats with ties to ethnic enclaves in the outer boroughs.

Of course, there was the upstate brawl between reform Gov-ernor Eliot Spitzer and modern day machinist Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver over who would become the next state comptroller. Stuck in the middle was Bronx-born finance whiz and former comptroller candidate Bill Mulrow, whose parents were Irish immigrants.

Word is that Spitzer favored Mulrow, who was one of three candidates tapped by an expert panel, but Silver and his Assembly allies ignored the panel recommendation and went with their own pick.

Mulrow, who has a shiny Ivy League resume, was actually raised in a blue collar home. His power base when he ran for comptroller in 2002 was traditionally Irish labor unions.

Meanwhile, earlier this month, another child of an Irish immigrant made news upstate as well as in New York City. Brian Kavanagh, whose father came to the U.S. from Buncrana, Co. Derry, was sworn in as the new 74th District state assemblyman.

Kavanagh, whose father is a retired NYPD police officer, will represent a large swath of Manhattan’s East Side, covering neighborhoods such as the Lower East Side, Union Square, Gramercy Park, Stuy-vesant Town, Peter Cooper Village, Murray Hill and Turtle Bay.

Kavanagh also has an Ivy League pedigree. One of six children who was raised in Staten Island, the 40 year-old Kavanagh attended Princeton. In fact, four Kavanagh brothers (like Bill Mulrow) work in finance.

Kavanagh, however, chose a different path. He worked as a City Hall staffer for Democratic mayors Koch and Dinkins, then earned a law degree from New York Uni-versity School of Law, before getting a job as a City Council staffer.

He won a tough East Side Assembly race, and was sworn in on Super Bowl Sunday, sounding a bit like Spitzer as he promised to reform Albany.

“This is an amazingly diverse district with a diversity of races, ethnicities and lifestyles,” he was quoted as saying. “But from Tudor City to the Lower East Side people said they need change in government. By some accounts, we have one of the most dysfunctional state governments in Am-erica.”

Not surprisingly, given Manhattan’s ideological bent, Kavanagh ran as an old fashioned Democrat.

In fact, one of Kavanagh’s opponents dismissed him as a liberal -– not because he believed Kavanagh should become more conservative, but because he should be more progressive.

Kavanagh’s father told the Derry Journal last year, “Brian is a very clever lad who has always chosen to work with the disadvantaged in society. I’ve no doubt he will make a difference to his constituents.”

So, is this some kind of trend? Are the Irish coming back to the Democratic fold?

That’s a bit much to say. True, the Demo-crats have wrested control from the Republicans in Wash-

ington, and surely Irish voters in key districts played an important role in that change.

But the looming presidential race will heat this debate up. Barack Obama will claim to be a trailblazer like JFK. Rudy Giuliani will model himself after the beloved Reagan, while Hillary Clinton will tout her husband’s record in Northern Ireland.

In the meantime, keep an eye out for a new book from Michael Sean Winters due out in a few months called Left at the Altar: How the Democrats Lost the Catholics and How the Catholics Can Save the Democrats.

Of course, Democrats such as Brian Kav-anagh hope that party is already on its way to being saved.

(Contact at tomdeignan@earthlink.net)