The Irish Echo, the oldest continuously-published Irish American weekly newspaper, has been sold by the Grimes family in New York to Dublin businessman Sean Finlay for $2.2 million (€2.44 million) according to the New York Post.

Mr Finlay, chairman of RF Communications, is reported to have other undisclosed backers in Dublin. The tabloid has been published by Mrs Claire O'Gara Grimes since her husband John Grimes died in 1987 and has been in the Grimes family for 47 years.

Mr Finlay is part owner of Meteor Mobile Communications, which owns one of three mobile phone licences in the Republic. The paper has estimated revenue of $2.5 million with a profit of several hundred thousand dollars. It competes for weekly readership with the Irish Voice.