IRISH PHOTO ARCHIVE

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We sell historical, archived images from every day Irish life as well as significant events in the country’s history.

From an archive of over 3.5 million images you can see the many significant characters that visited Ireland over the years. Have a look and enjoy!

Thursday 1 January 2015

New Year Resolutions with Milo O'Shea

It’s the first day of the New Year, and the time when everybody starts thinking of changing their life for the better. Even if you declare to all and sundry that you don’t ‘do’ New Year Resolutions, you probably secretly thought of a couple – the kind you would do if you were to do resolutions.

The most popular New Year Resolutions people went with in the 1950s were illustrated for the Lensmen photographers by Milo O’Shea, a talented character actor who cut his thespian teeth on the Irish stage. He is perhaps best known internationally for his role as Dr Duran Duran in Barberella, or will be recognized from various roles in series such as Cheers, Fraiser and The West Wing.  

If you have a hangover from the celebrations last night, the first item on your list might be alcohol, or at least copious drinking. It seemed to have been a common choice in 1959 too, as Milo demonstrates in this image.


Smoking is another choice, especially in 2015 when you’d almost need a bank loan to purchase just a single pack of cigarettes. The health benefits of giving up are not to be overlooked either, of course, and I can testify from personal experience on that. Though whether money or health was the main push factor in 1959, I’m not sure. Given Milo’s attempt to wedge as many in his mouth as possible, I suspect health may be a little bit down the list.


But another resolution that constantly pops up for people is to stop procrastinating, or to stop putting unpleasant tasks on the long finger. Milo demonstrates this tendency in this photo, as he sneakily brushesthe dirt under the rug while nobody is watching.


There’s a few more modern things that people might be swearing off this year, like maybe wasting less time on Facebook, or watching less on Netflix, or spending less on takeaway skinny mochas with a caramel twist.

But if you are one of the people intending to avoid Facebook or Twitter, we hope you check in occasionally to keep up with the new photographs we keep unearthing at the Archive. We’d love to get your feedback on the images, so keep in touch with us in 2015. 

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