THIS NEW YEAR’S DAY, TheJournal.ie brings you a round-up of the day’s main news stories – plus any bits and pieces you may have missed.

Welcome to 2012

It’s a year of anniversaries – James Joyce’s works coming out of copyright, the centenary of the sinking of the Titanic and 350 years of the Phoenix Park (read 20 interesting facts about the park here).

If your New Year’s resolution is to give up smoking, a figure cited by the HSE’s Public Health Director Dr Fenton Howell might give you a kickstart – he told RTÉ’s This Week programme that one in every two smokers will die of a tobacco-related illness… and that 5,500 smokers die each year in this way.

Some of the resolutions you HAVE shared with us on our poll today include standing up for your fellow citizens, to get fit, to worry less, to be more creative and to organise your time better.

For our part, TheJournal.ie’s writers have been sharing their thoughts on the things they won’t miss from 2011 – and what they are most looking forward to in 2012.

But the most extraordinary hopes and dreams for 2012 came from Trevor O’Sullivan today. Trevor has had some very serious health problems in his life – and has decided on his ‘bucket list’ of ambitions that he wants to achieve while he still can. Read his powerful piece here.

‘Pinterest’? ‘Real girl make-up tutorials’? Smart TVs? If you are not sure what these are, check out our predictions for what will be hot in 2012.

And in other news…

While there have sadly been two road deaths today, there was an overall drop in road fatalities in 2011. The RSA says that the number is the lowest since records of such deaths began in 1959.

Mary and Martin McAleese have been given the Tipperary International Peace Award for 2012.

Maternity matters are on the mind today – as well as the arrival of gorgeous Amelie Rose Mitchell (see our main pic) as Ireland’s first-born of 2012, the National Maternity Hospital in Holles Street welcomed its first-ever female Master, Dr Rhona Mahony.

We should have pegged Tourism Minister Leo Varadkar as a party animal. He wants next year’s New Year’s Eve party in Dublin to be bigger – and with more fireworks.

Iran has throwing some alarming shapes today. It announced that it had test-fired a surface-to-air missile during a drill in the strategic Strait of Hormuz. It also constructed its first nuclear rod – but for “peaceful purposes only”.

North Korea, meanwhile, has been pledging itself to defending its new leader “unto death”.

If you’re wondering how the British Prince Philip is getting on after his heart stent procedure over Christmas, see his first public appearance of 2012 in this BBC news clip.

And if all that sounds a bit serious, join the Huffington Post is speculating on the name Beyoncé may have given her baby – a baby which may or may not have been born this morning. Tiana-May Carter anyone?

There were quite a few New Year’s Day swims going on around the country – Conor McCabe sent us in his photographs of this hardy lot from Laghey, Co Donegal and their ‘Dip in Nip Pajamas’ swim in the River Laghey to raise funds for the local May bank holiday festival: