Just more than 14 months to go to the third millennium and everyone's asking: where's the party? It's not an easy question to answer at the moment. Mainly, everyone thinks someone else is organising it, and that it will all somehow happen when the time comes.
And of course it will. But for those with fuss, fuss, fuss, tendencies there might be some anxiety that nothing has yet been announced, and how can we make our plans?
For those who are charged with some kind of official responsibility for it all . . . it could be a bit of a headache. There hasn't been any real announcement of how much money will be available, or what style the theme party will take. Surely they must be fidgeting a bit?
Not Doireann Ni Bhriain, however, her job as millennium festivals manager is clearly defined. Her brief, she will tell you firmly, is not to act as a party hostess ensuring that the nation is drunk out of its collective mind for a week.
Rather her job is to build on what exists already and organise support for the various Irish festivals in 1999, giving them a kind of buzz and sense of expectancy.
The hope is that starting on St Patrick's Day everyone - tourists and residents alike - will think Ireland is starting early and get into the millennium mood.
They want the year leading up to the actual changeover date to be special and remembered for its spectacular festivals.
What they have in mind is that people who will be well back in their native Bradford or Boston or Brisbane for New Year's Eve celebrations will think they started it all off in Ireland. And also that there will be some lasting memory of it all.
They don't just want it to be considered as the time when a whole lot of festivals got a bit of extra cash - more as the time when the festivals were really special because of the year that was in it.
There's no absolutely precise figure yet about exactly how much the funding will be, but Doireann believes that given the enthusiasm and the unlikely chance of anyone being around to do it properly in another thousand years' time, the funding will be enormous.
So what about Mile Atha Cliath, Dublin's Millennium partnership? Has it started to organise the capital city's party, deciding on what sandwiches and how many chairs? Dorothy Barry, the chief executive, is quick to explain that it's not about food and drink for one night, it's much more a coming together of Dublin Corporation and various commercial and public bodies to co-ordinate the kind of projects that will make a lasting contribution.
And what are they exactly? Dorothy says she will tell me on November 9th. She will tell everybody then, but surely I knew all the activity that had been going on to get the people involved and the intention to make a Millennium Zone in Dublin?
Well, I suppose I did know, sort of. All those ideas, competitions and suggestions. And something instead of Nelson. But what I was really wondering was what exactly would be happening on The Night?
Dorothy said the night was all very well, but it was a permanent memento to the change of millennium that was called for. The sense of rejuvenating the city from the centre out, of doing a huge lot of significant things in a small area.
Would it be a River Party I wondered? Maybe in your raincoat with a woolly scarf and a hot whiskey in a Thermos flask?
Dorothy Barry, who is a woman who knows a lot of facts, said that Low Tide on the Liffey will be at six minutes after midnight on January 1st in the year 2000. A river doesn't look its best at low water.
So what about fireworks?
She was sure that the Government was very eager to put huge support into it all. After all, the world's media would be flitting around from land to land to see how each country was celebrating. The Irish would want to put on a good show, for the sake of all those of Irish blood abroad as well as for ourselves. She had this feeling that Dublin's plans would be really spectacular in the true sense of the word.
Fireworks then?
Well she was sure that nobody would let all the brilliant pyrotechnics experts that we had in this country be snapped up by other places just because nobody had made up their minds. She was confident that it would be a terrific night.
Hopefully much more for everyone to participate in than an event confined to the Invitation-Only few.
Something that people could tell their children sleeping on their shoulders that they had actually been part of.
Is she worried about the not-to-clear funding situation? No, she is certain that all the appropriate money will be provided. It's not as if the Government is going to be around in its present form when the Fourth Millennium dawns.
Dorothy told me that the Reliable Babysitters for the Millennium had already been set up. A group of magnificently forward-thinking people providing at £200 a go the perfect baby-sitting service for The Night, whatever the Night is going to involve.
Peter Feeney of RTE is the man in charge of Millennium Broadcasting. He will tell you about the various programmes that have been commissioned leading up to the actual date, some of them historical, on the achievements of mankind, plus reflections on various aspects of Ireland during the last 1,000 years.
But The Night itself, you ask.
Well whatever they do, he'll film it. He says he thinks it will be something marvellous, that nobody will ever forget. He imagines the day will begin with the new millennium arriving in the New Zealand area and going on until the sun comes up on the last place in the Pacific. All the television stations will be doing something similar.
Yes, but the party? He assumes there are going to be dozens of them, hundreds, that RTE will be going from Belfast to Galway, from Cork to Dublin, and a lot of smaller places as well.
Maybe he knows more than the others. Will it be indoors or outdoors? He assumes that given our weather some of it will certainly have to be indoors. There is still the memory of Choirs of the World in Lansdowne Road which was in the so-called good weather and the audience and cameras were nearly washed away.
So where does he think the Big National Event will be? Feeney thinks it might be College Green - that's a nice area and lends itself well, but that's only his guess.
Shouldn't someone know by now? Not at all, 15 months to go. The Irish have a reputation for starting late and doing things right.
He says that he's more concerned about getting the mood right than what will actually be laid on.
New Year's Eve can be a lonely time for some people, the end of a century would accentuate that, the end of a millennium would multiply it even further.
Peter Feeney wants to see that people don't feel excluded from the jollity. He doesn't like to think of viewers thinking that everyone else is having a great time out there at something glittering. He hopes that some of it will involve an outdoor event with a lot of children, rather than having lines of celebrities to point out the difference between a Them and an Us.
But he is, like all the rest of them, totally optimistic. This is a country where they can do it right and they will when the time comes.