O'Connell Street in Dublin may be getting its Millennium Spike and London its Millennium Dome, but some people in the midlands are looking back through history for ways to celebrate the big event.
Laois county councillor John Moran has put forward a proposal to light up the Rock of Dunamase, one of the highest points in the midlands, to commemorate the millennium in the midlands. The Fine Gael councillor believes the rock, three miles north of Portlaoise, is known to people all over Ireland and to visitors from abroad.
"Anyone who has ever travelled the road from Cork to Dublin will recognise the rock instantly because it is one of the highest points in the midlands," he says.
"It is also visible to travellers, especially tourists, travelling from Rosslare to the West of Ireland, standing where it is overlooking the main Carlow-Portlaoise road." Mr Moran has no trouble with celebrating 2,000 years of Christianity by lighting up what has long been established as one of the country's oldest pagan sites.
"St Patrick himself christianised all the pagan sites, the old wells and the old rocks, so there is no problem at all about doing it," he adds.
"History and tradition tell us that it has been occupied since prehistoric times, from the Neolithic, to pagan and Christian times, both as a seat of learning and a fortress in the time of the O'Mores. What better way to draw attention to the Rock of Dunamase and the central importance of Co Laois than to light up the rock as a millennium project?" "It will stand out like a beacon, within the surrounding countryside to remind us of our history, our landscape and our heritage."
He believes the history of the rock is, in essence, the history of Ireland with earliest written references to it telling the story of the plunder of the castle there by the Vikings which happened when Aodh, coarb of Colmanmoccu Cremthainn Ain of Terryglass was slain.
Diarmaid MacMurrough gave the castle there to Strongbow as part of Aoife's dowry and William Marshall, heir of Strongbow, had built a motte castle there, with a ditch and rampart dividing the slope into two or three baileys.
John Moran says records showed that in or about 1250, his son-in-law and heir, William de Braose, rebuilt and enlarged the castle, which passed to the Mortimer family through de Braose's daughter.
Conall O More of Laois wrested the castle from the English and rebuilt it to be the chief stronghold for his house, which it remained, until the Plantation of Laois.
In 1641, the parliamentarian Sir Charles Coote took it from the O'Mores, but in 1646 Eoghan Rua O'Neill recovered it for the Catholic Confederates, who held it until 1650.
The castle on the rock was eventually attacked and destroyed by Cromwellians under Hewson and Reynolds in 1650.
Mr Moran says the rock and the castle are now under the control of Duchas, the heritage authority, which he hopes will become involved with the project.
Since he first floated the idea of lighting the rock, there has been a lot of support for the idea, across party lines and from people outside the county, he says. "I hope to build on that through the county council and attempt to get the job done in time for the celebrations. It will not cost that much and it would be a very fitting monument."