Irishmen bring their lack of romanticism to the grave

LET’S be honest. Traditionally, Irishmen are not renowned for being the world’s greatest romantics.

While our Continental counterparts woo their womenfolk with expensive chocolate and gentle caresses, an Irish guy’s idea of a good night in is a packet of bacon fries, a can of cool lager and a snog with a hot chic in front of the telly.

William Butler Yeats summed it all up years ago when he reckoned that romantic Ireland was ‘dead and gone and with O’Leary in the grave’. Of course, he was thinking of more patriotic kind of romance but it looks like he was right about his fellow Irishmen, if the results of a recent national study are to be believed.