A recent survey reveals that there’s nothing the Irish like doing better in bed than catching up on their beauty sleep.

The survey of Irish guys and girls found that a massive 88 percent of the Irish public would prefer to use their bed for a good night’s sleep than for having sex, which only 19 percent felt was the most important use of a bed. Either people are being coy or we really like hiding from the Irish winter weather/nursing a hangover with a good snooze from the safety of our sheets.

Despite this, and thanks to our increasingly hectic lifestyles, we’re really bad about climbing under the covers at the end of a long day and 30 percent of the people surveyed claimed they had previously fallen asleep at their desk at work.

Our tiredness during the day, when we need to be our most productive, may be down to our poor sleep patterns and bad getting-to-bed practices, because 60 percent of participants also admitted that they indulge in unhealthy nocturnal habits (thanks Netflix!) and the average Irish person hits the hay a lot later than the recommended bedtime of 10.37 pm. Who knew we were supposed to be going to bed that early and at such an exact time!

Despite sex only coming in second place in the rankings, if actor Jamie Dornan was placed in front of Irish people, 70 percent of Irish people would be more eager to jump between the sheets. In second place came Irish model Nadia Forde. Country singer Nathan Carter and TV presenter Síle Seoige shared third place.

Strangely, many would also chose RTÉ News presenter Brian Dobson and TV presenter Miriam O'Callaghan to join them in bed instead of the younger pairing of Irish Health Minister Leo Varadkar and former Rose of Tralee, Maria Walsh.

As we like to spend so much time there, good bed hygiene is also very important to Irish people with half of those asked changing their sheets at least every two weeks and 52 percent buying new sheets every year. Thankfully, a low six percent said that they would wait longer than a month to change their bed sheets!

The survey was carried out by new Irish bedding and loungewear website www.brosheets.com, targeted at providing Irish men with quality bed sheets and loungewear to send them off to sleep without having to count too many sheep.