But is there one among us with the power to make sense of this, a leader with the facility to make the connections with the precious and painful past, to find the stirring words that rise above the accountant's remorseless drone, to urge us on to something higher, more noble? Someone with the vision and eloquence to save us from ourselves?
As the young nature defenders in the Glen of the Downs are being contemptuously advised to grow up and get a job, German and French tourists are seeing through our cool, green image and voting with their feet. In our new superiority, we can hardly muster a grunt for the tourists who still bother to come, let alone summon up that "ease of mixing, welcoming, warmth, unplanned magic moments" compound, being peddled by our hapless tourism marketing folk. Qualities almost as obsolete as the leprechaun and the thatched cottage.
In our blinkered, self-obsessed, much-wants-more vision, we have trampled that which made us different, left ourselves without a space that is uniquely Irish, without a sense of who or what we are, without visionaries or a vision. "Our whole values now are about competition, success, climbing the ladder," says Sister Stanislaus Kennedy, "and when these become the values, we make no attempt to look at who we really are, to look into the core of our being and ask ourselves `what do we really want?' "
The absence of visionaries has never been more acutely felt. Apart from the planting of oak trees (at a smattering of locations which can only dilute the impact and symbolism), what do our millennium plans say about the Irish? That we have as much vision and imagination as Mister Magoo? That, if God is good, that useless spike will never see the light of day? That maybe the fact that the projects are so shortlived is a blessing?
A true visionary would never have countenanced something as feebly literal as chucking a candle in the post for millennium's last light. He or she would surely have inspired us to fetch our own candle by articulating the metaphor, filling us with the symbolism of the act. True visionaries would somehow find a language to inspire; new, unfamiliar words and deeds to express the new challenges facing the smooth, swaggering New Ireland. Remember the hilarity surrounding Mary Robinson's "Diaspora" speech to the Oireachtas? "D'ye take a couple of them diasporas with a glass of water?" joked one of the comatose deputies, in an attempt to convey how hilariously out of touch she was with the popular vocabulary. But what Irish person now does not understand the "diaspora", does not know it to be a meaningful description to the Irish scattering?
THE unhappy truth is that the time we live in is not conducive to visionary voices. "One of the things that is essential in order to have a vision is time apart, time to be alone," says Sister Stanislaus Kennedy. "We live in a time of great noise. . . What is absent is the place of silence and with that absence comes an absence of people with vision. There is a fear of silent space, because we fear entering into our darkness. Our great fear now is of underachieving, of being out of control. We are expected to be upbeat, hip, confident and strong so we are almost not allowed to confront our darkness. But in our darkness is mystery and miracle, a place where everything is possible."
We do have visionaries of course - many of them focused heroically on single issues and communities. But what the time needs is a voice that not simply assimilates these concerns but transcends the single issues, a voice that is in tune with history, commands national respect, even awe.
Whose could this voice be? Bride Rosney, with the advantage of having worked closely with one such icon, President Mary Robinson, has attempted to define the qualities that combine to produce such a creature. "They are people who think of the next generation, take a statesman's view. Politicians have to think of the next election. They are very, very good listeners; they will assimilate what is being said and make it a part of themselves so that it conditions what they say next. They have an awkward voice; they know that to make progress, you must be prepared to be unpopular. They are individualists by their nature; they are not team players and do not sing from a collective hymn sheet. And there is often a certain distance around them which causes people to look up to them."
What she describes is a rare creature indeed. As we light our candles this evening and at millennium's last light, let's start looking for the silent spaces and those who occupy them. . .