A study carried out by a sociological research agency in Dublin city last weekend has rated the ''Dublin Rose'' dance as ''repellent'' in terms of attracting the opposite sex.

The agency tracks the latest hypes such as dance moves and raps which go viral, and believed they had stumbled across a diamond in the rough in the ''Dublin Rose'', demonstrated by the eponymous Rose at last week's Rose of Tralee.

''We'd just never seen anything like it,'' explained Dr Luff, Head of the crack team. ''We thought this was the real Eureka moment for the Irish club scene.

The idea was to test it in a woman-to-man context first - as it was first conceived by a woman - and then transfer it to men, who are of course in much greater need of the help we provide; natch.''

''We set out to contrive the conditions, to make it a sure thing,'' went on Dr Luff.
We hand-selected twenty women based on their Facebook ''likes'' and number of friends, which as we all know is an immutable quality-barometer; not that it should even matter: we were asking women to approach men, in Ireland.

''We then sent them in pairs to clubs throughout Dublin city to test out the ''Dublin Rose''.
It was staightforward: all we asked of them was to approach a male stooge in the smoking area and say '' sexy like a chocolate strawberry''.

Once the stooge had recovered from the shock and summoned the loungeboy to sweep up his pint glass which he had dropped in said shock, she was to beckon him onto the dancefloor to test out the ''Dublin Rose'' once ''Partyrock'' was played by the DJ.

The stooges were invariably hesitant - ''but I've only had four pints'' -, and suspicious - ''what country are you from?'' - but they eventually made it out to the dancefloor in a state of disbelief.

From the moment ''Partyrock'' blared out our subject launced into the ''Dublin Rose'', leaving the stooge transfixed by its hypnotic force; but this is where the study went awry.

In each case, the stooge reacted aversely to the comely subject, blubbering out 'I have a girlfriend', or 'I'm just out for the craic, like'.

''For this reason we've decided to forgo the reverse study; it wouldn't be justifiable to subject any more humans to that embarrassment. We had high hopes for the 'Dublin Rose' but you can just never anticipate the reaction to these movements.''

Paul Morrissey