IN A recent survey of Polish people living in Ireland, their number one gripe was not the chaotic traffic or the exorbitant cost of living, but Irish women. The online poll, conducted by the Polish Information Centre in Dublin, found that many Poles believe Irish women act in a less-than-decorous manner.

But are they right? I conducted a quick poll among my male friends. "What do you think about the women you meet on a night out?" I asked. "Drunk," was the resounding answer. "Drunk and easy."

Are we? Is that the perceived opinion of Irish women, even among our own?

Part of me actually agrees with the Poles. For every stylish and refined Irish woman there are at least two belligerent, brassy, ballsy broads bursting out of too-tight clothes, roaring about getting pissed or the previous night's sexual conquest.

The very same streets trodden by our drink-sodden sisters are full of stylish Polish girls, naturally beautiful, impeccably made-up, demure and soft-spoken.

However, City Channel presenter and Polish native Izabela Chudzicka defends Irish women, claiming that the survey presents an unfair reflection. "The way Ireland has gone in relation to multiculturalism, it is almost impossible to presume that a woman who falls around the place drunk is Irish."

Marek Czenczek, Project Co-ordinator with the Dublin Polish Information & Cultural Centre, says Polish men voted the way they did not because of the lack of beauty of Irish women, but because, to a certain extent, they have failed to gain acceptance from them.

Ever since that fateful day in May 2004 when Poland joined the EU and we experienced a mass influx of Poles, Irish men haven't stopped raving about how stunning Polish women are, and yet Polish men don't return the favour - in fact, they do the opposite. A friend of mine who has a large network of Polish friends told me that the majority of Irish women are seen as ugly by Polish men.

To Irish men, Polish women are seemingly the perfect female specimen - and not just aesthetically. By their very culture and upbringing, the majority of Polish women are conservative, undemanding, and like to embrace traditional family values - or, to put it plainly, they like to look after their men.

Izabela Chudzicka acknowledges this. "Polish women get married much sooner. Religion is a still a very big thing in Poland - most people still go to mass on a Sunday. Women are quite domesticated."

Is it any wonder Irish men are falling for these Eastern European beauties? They're like their mammies - only taller, skinnier and sexier.

Polish native Dominika Topolska says, "Polish women demand more respect. They don't tend to get too close to a man before they really get to know him. Basically, they aren't easy."

Kazik Anhalt tells me that Polish women are much more "mysterious", adding, "You can't strike up a relationship with them just like that."

Kazik, who has been living in Ireland for five years, said he was initially shocked by some Irish women's drinking.

Tom Galvin, editor of Polski Herald, says that some Polish women have told him that Irish girls "scare the hell out of them". "Polish women don't drink as much and they would never be seen drunk in public," he says. "They are just more conservative."

But why is this ladette culture largely absent in Polish women? Is it because they are only recently emerging from years of oppression? Or is it that they have never been under the influence of American and English culture?

Perhaps the ladette phenomenon, the worst and ugliest by-product of feminism, has yet to hit the Poles and other Eastern European nations. Maybe in 10 years' time we will regularly encounter marauding groups of lager-swilling, drunk and disorderly Polish women?

A post on a Polish internet forum by an Irish man reads, "I hope this doesn't sound too un-PC, but you can't help but notice the level of beauty/femininity walking the streets of Polish cities, their air of self-confidence, poise, lack of needless layers of make-up and general openness, good humour and finally that je ne sais pas . . . that indefinable quality that sets them apart."

In stark contrast, I remember a recent conversation with a taxi man who told me that it was rare for him to bring home a girl who still had both her clothing and her speech intact. He then proceeded to tell me about the gang of girls he'd brought home before me. He was no prude, he assured me, and yet he was horrified by what he heard in the back of his cab: girls talking about having sex as if they were shopping for socks.

Polish men are accustomed to ladies, but here they encounter women who match them pint for pint, lack any sense of etiquette, and who aggressively demonstrate their sexual appetites.

Can we really blame Polish men for feeling our "ladies" lack a little something?

- Andrea Byrne