Ah, New Year's Resolutions—a tale as old as time. Just like every previous year, 2025 will see people setting goals to “lose a bit of weight,” “have one less drink every week,” and “actually stop smoking for real.”
We're usually doing something else, most likely you'll find us at the blackjack table, but we decided to do a little investigation of what people in Ireland are searching for online, in anticipation of setting their New Year goals. We found a few interesting results, ranging from the usual resolutions (like the ones we’ve mentioned), to the more aspirational, like “increase productivity” (those people sound boring). For some people, winning more money is on the agenda. Given we write specific guides on how to do this, those people are our type of people.
Whether or not people stick with these resolutions is a whole other story - after all, someone recently told us that by the 12th of January each year, about 85% of people have given up on their weight loss goals. We’re writing this on the 6th of January, and with the cold spell in full force, we can safely say that we’ve already given up on that particular goal. It’s way too cold to venture out to the gym. Now, could someone pass the leftover Bailey’s?
Anyway, this article isn’t about us and our failed New Year’s Resolutions. It’s about what the people of Ireland vowed to do this year.
Resolution | Search Volume | Search Growth |
---|---|---|
weight loss | 4500 | 2.65 |
weight training | 250 | 0.56 |
read more | 30 | 0 |
new job | 150 | -0.82 |
stop smoking | 200 | -2.89 |
lose weight | 300 | -4.06 |
mindfulness | 2100 | -6.44 |
save money | 90 | N/A |
stop vaping | 70 | N/A |
win money | 60 | N/A |
better sleep | 50 | N/A |
stop drinking | 20 | N/A |
cooking tips | 10 | N/A |
increase productivity | 10 | N/A |
new hobbies | 10 | N/A |
meet new people | 10 | N/A |
improve fitness | N/A | N/A |
get a raise | N/A | N/A |
The highest amount of searches ahead of the new year was indeed for “weight loss”, with a total of 4,500. That’s up 2.65% since last year. Other weight-related resolutions also ranked near the top of the list, with “lose weight” getting 300 searches and “weight training” getting 450. Interestingly, although “lose weight” ranked third on the list, it was down -4.06% compared to last year.
So, either we’re getting more body positive, or 2024 simply killed our ability to care.
Second on the list was “mindfulness”. The term got 2,100 searches, but it also showed the biggest drop when compared to the previous year: 6.44% less than in 2024. We’ve just added one more search to the stats for mindfulness, so that we could grab a proper definition for you.
According to the HSE, mindfulness is “the practice of paying attention to whatever is happening in the present moment and experiencing it without judgement”. Without judgement? Count us out.
For the smokers out there, you might want to take some inspiration from the rest of the nation. “Stop smoking” was fourth on the list of top resolutions, receiving 200 searches in December, although this was down -2.89% since last year. According to a study in May 2024, about 680,000 in Ireland are smokers, representing roughly 17% of the population aged over 15 years. So if only 200 of those people are looking to quit this year, that’s a tiny, tiny fraction. Better than nothing, though.
Lo and behold, there’s a (loosely) casino-related resolution on the list! Right there at number nine, with 60 searches, people want to win more money this year.
If we’re honest, same. Good thing we have tons of online casino recommendations, so if you can’t make it to Vegas (or Bray) to try for your big win this year, you might just bag one online.
Semi-related to the previous resolution, “save money” came in at seventh place, with 90 searches. We can’t say we really blame people for not having this one higher up on the list. Have you seen the prices of things in Ireland recently?
Good luck saving money when you’re paying €3,000 a month to live in a room without a window (or whatever).
At this point, you might be wondering if “stop drinking” made it onto the list at all, or if we’re happy enough to go along with the stereotype of the Irish being a bunch of drunks. Well, the answer is that both are true. Giving up the gargle didn’t even rank in the top 10 this year, coming in at number 12 on the list, with 20 searches.
To give you some perspective, that’s lower than “read more” with 30 searches, and “sleep better” with 50. And to be fair, I’m sure we all wish we could sleep better, but it’s not much of a resolution, is it? It’s like saying “stop having a broken arm”.
Right down towards the bottom of the list, we saw a few other resolutions with minimum search volume, for example “meet new people” and “new hobbies”. Ah sure, getting new hobbies isn’t really the Irish way, is it? We have more than enough to be getting on with… going to the pub is a hobby, right?
Casinos.com utilised online tools Ahrefs and Semrush to analyse search trends in Ireland for various resolutions. We looked for searches of certain keywords and ranked them based on which had the most searches for the month of December heading into the New Year. We also looked at the change in search volume between 2024 and 2025.
The data and graphics on this page are free to use as long as proper credit is given by linking to the original article.