They say beauty is only skin deep. But that may be little consolation to Ireland’s men, who have been ranked among the ugliest in the world.
The good looks of Irish-born Hollywood hearththrobs such as Michael Fassbender, Colin Farrell and Jonathan Rhys Meyers are the exception to the rule, according to new findings from an international dating website that only accepts attractive people.
Less than one in 10 Irish men who submitted their profiles to beautifulpeople.com in the past 12 months were accepted, according to the dating website’s latest statistics.
The nation-by-nation figures also revealed that men from the UK and Poland are just as aesthetically unappealing as their Irish counterparts, with the three countries propping up the foot of the coveted table with a humiliating 9 per cent success rate.
But the new figures will be more of a blow to Irish males, who have slid from 12 per cent last year to the foot of the table for the first time. Both the UK and the Poland also share the wooden spoon, with the same 9 per cent success rate.
There was better news for Irish women, who maintained their top 10 position in the rankings from last year, with the same 23 per cent success rate.
Scandinavian women dominated the top three places, with Norwegians the pick of the world's beauties at 71 per cent, followed by Sweden at 62 per cent and Iceland at 61 per cent. And men from Sweden, at 60 per cent, were rated the top hunks by the LA-based sites, followed by Brazil at 41 per cent and Denmark at 40 per cent.
The elite dating club boasts five million members worldwide, despite its strict vetting procedures whereby picky members of the opposite sex vote on romance-hunters on the basis of how attractive they look in a submitted profile picture.