When the new millennium prepares to burst into life in New York's Times Square next New Year's Eve, the ball, which is traditionally dropped on the stroke of midnight, will be made of Waterford Crystal.
The acceptance of Irish giftware for such a public occasion is a boost to companies which have helped to make it fashionable. Leading that charge on the US markets through mail order and the Internet is Fallers of Galway, which celebrates its 120th birthday this year.
Since before the turn of the last century, Fallers has played a special part in the greening of America and has shown that Irish giftware and jewellery, such as the Claddagh ring, has an enduring appeal on a massive market.
The link between Fallers and the west goes back before the jewellery business was opened in Galway city. When clockmaker Stephen Faller moved to Ireland from Germany in the early 1870s, he began to sell clocks door to door around the west, and still in many households dotted around the region, a Faller clock is to be found keeping perfect time. In 1879, Faller opened a retail unit in Dominick Street. Then he moves to a bigger premises on Williamsgate street, just off Eyre Square, and it is at that location that the Galway shop can still be found.
It was around this stage that the Fallers began designing and producing the famous Claddagh ring at their workshop - copperfastening its claim to be the real home of the ring.
Traditionally, a grandmother gave a ring to a granddaughter, and consequently many of the original Faller bands are still to be found all over the world, having been handed down through the generations.
The first ring maker was Irish goldsmith Richard Joyce, who returned to Galway in 1690 after honing his skills in Tunis. He crafted the first ring at the Claddagh fishing village on the edge of the city. The rings with their distinctive hearts are the source of many modern myths, and ring owners have formed their own superstitions about them. The direction in which the heart is pointed if often meant to signify whether someone's heart is betrothed or not.
In 1963, just a few months before his death, US President John F. Kennedy was presented with a pair of rings during his visit to Galway.
Generation after generation has turned to Fallers for engagement and wedding rings, continuing a unique bond that has existed between the company and the people of the region. Now, 120 years after its establishment, the company is stronger than ever before, using that local support as a springboard to maintain its position as the world's largest retailer of Claddagh rings.