THE town that took Fungi the dolphin to its heart has embraced crabs and starfish and conger eels too, with a £2 million aquarium opened yesterday by the Tanaiste, Mr Spring.
Named Mara Beo or Oceanworld, the project houses more than 100 species of fish, rare and common. Among them are "vampire fish" (lampreys), box crab and blue mouth, a type of redfish living in 300 metres of water off the Porcupine Bank. The aquarium also boasts the only red lobster in Ireland, and the 37 tanks hold sea cucumber, cuttle fish, conger eels, starfish, and the freshwater Arctic char.
Mara Beo is financed by Udaras na Gaeltachta, Bord Failte, the European Regional Development Fund and the Business Expansion Scheme, but is the brainchild of a local "man with a bucket", Mr Kevin Flannery.
A fish quality officer with the Department of the Marine, Mr Flannery is also a rare fish enthusiast and one of the first to identify Dingle's best known mammal. He has rehabilitated many loggerhead turtles swept off course from the Caribbean, and transferred them for "R&R" to the aquarium in Portaferry, Co Down.
The aquarium's historical display starts on a mountain top, moves to sea level and descends to an otherworldly "abyss". Visitors are told the story of the Arctic char, the fish St Brendan was reputed to have lived on up on Mount Brandon.
Displays also chart the voyage of St Brendan to America, and relate the development of Dingle peninsula and the construction of the Gallarus Oratory, the oldest known place of Christian worship in Europe.
Fish farming - of salmon, turbot, halibut and shellfish - is represented. Gairdin an Iascaire narrates pioneering work in researching mariculture along the west coast of Ireland.
