A website for so-called beautiful people has ranked males from the island of Ireland as the ugliest in the world.

Just one in 20 of Northern Ireland single males who apply to land their profiles on beautifulpeople.com are accepted, according to the website's latest statistics.

New analysis of last year's nation-by-nation figures has also revealed that the Republic of Ireland and Poland are joint second-to-bottom on the list, with just a 9% success rate.

That's no consolation to our men, who at just 6%, have been rated as the world's ugliest by the Los Angeles-based site's chiefs — a stark contrast to the table-topping Swedes at 65%.

The elite dating club now claims more than five million members worldwide, despite its strict vetting procedures whereby picky members of the opposite sex rate you on the basis of how attractive you look in a submitted profile picture.

Although an average of one in five, or 20% of all global applicants — up to 3,000 every day — make it on to the site, there are huge discrepancies between nations. Men from India (15%), Germany (15%) and the UK (12%) also proved a turn-off for voters, while hunks from Brazil (45%), Denmark (40%) and Italy (39%) got the thumbs-up.

However, there was better news for Ulster's women, who have a respectable 15% admission rate, 4% lower than the Republic, but level with Britain and above the bottom-of-the-list Germans at just 13%.

Scandinavian babes dominated the top three places, with Norwegians the pick of the world's beauties at 76%, followed by Sweden at 68% and Iceland at 66%.

However, Greg Hodge, who runs the website, believes both Ulster and Irish fellas could shoot up the rankings if they smartened themselves up and made more effort with their appearance.He said: “I think men from the whole island have let themselves down bythe profile pictures they've beenuploading.

“Often it's a photo of them inside the pub with a pint in their hand, whereas a Brazilian man will go to great efforts and make sure he looks tanned and toned and probably has a beach as a backdrop.

“So I really believe if men, both Northern Irish and from the Republic,made more effort to look good in their photos and weren't so relaxed about it, they'd have far more success.

“But I'd stress they shouldn't feel too disheartened by this. If there were rankings for charm, humour and accent, they'd be top of the list.”

Mr Hodge also stressed he makes no apology for running a website which is exclusively available to the globe's best-looking singletons.

He said: “The concept is based on a fundamental human fact - that people want to be with someone they find attractive.”

He added: “We always get a surge of applicants at this time of year, in the run-up to Valentine's Day. A lot of people start to feel lonely and are desperate to try and get a bit of romance.”

Belfast Telegraph