So this morning it was reported that a poll by vacuous and inane dating website beautifulpeople.com placed Irish men as third ugliest in the world, and frankly we were outraged. Now let's talk about this site for a minute. It prides itself on its exclusivity, only allowing membership to men and woman that if feels are aesthetically pleasing enough on the eye to enter, which the existing members vote on. Vapid, vain and vulgar. And before you go thinking we're bitter, we're not attempting to rise above here, we just think it takes more than a pretty face to make someone beautiful.

 

Anyway, we would usually combat this argument by throwing out our Colin Farrell, Michael Fassbender and Tommy Bowe cards as testaments to the Irish male being more than attractive. You also have your Gabriel Byrnes and Daniel Day-Lewis' to hand, as well as your Tommy Bowes, Rob Kearneys and the like. But there are also a decent few up and coming Irish gents who are not only pretty faces, but also hella good at what they do. So beautifulpeople.com? Go and shite.

COLIN O'DONOGHUE

32 year old Drogheda native Colin is the current star of American Disney fairytale drama come to life Once Upon A Time, playing the infamous Captain Hook. Now before you go laughing at him, he's also starred in The Tudors as well as in 2011 religious horror flick The Rite, and he won the IFTA for Best New Talent at the awards ceremony many moons ago in 2003.  Also, he sounds like this. Hold onto your pants, they're about to be charmed off.

 

STEPHEN GARRIGAN

You'll know Stephen's voice even if you don't recognise his name or face all that well yet, but the Kodaline frontman with the dulcet tones is in one of the most promising bands to come out of the country in a long time, and can reduce grown men and women to emotional messes with one falsetto note. And while we're at it, the rest of the Kodaline boys aren't too shabby either.

 

AIDAN TURNER

He's been both a vampire and a dwarf, and he's still one of the better looking boys in both those scenarios. In fact, we think you'd be hard pushed to find a better looking vampire than his turn as one in Being Human, except for maybe Colin Farrell's in Fright Night. And Kili was the hot dwarf in The Hobbit, lest we all forget.

 

JACK REYNOR

The IFTA award-winner not only turned in an amazing performance in out film of 2012 What Richard Did, he also made enough of an impression on the international film community that he's landed himself a lead role opposite Mark Wahlberg in Transformers 4.

 

JAMIE DORNAN

Irish model and actor Jamie hails from Holywood, Co. Down and has gone all the way to Hollywood, California, modeling with the likes of Kate Moss and Eva Mendes and starring in Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette and ABC's Once Upon A Time as Snow White's Huntsman. If you want to see more of him, he's going to be in The Fall on BBC Two with The X Files' Gillian Anderson weekly. We've a feeling you'll want to tune in.