The swarms of children tickling fish and studying miscroscopic plankton may have been too busy to appreciate it yesterday, but the aquarium hosting the official Science Week opening in the west has recorded a recent technological breakthrough.
And it is of international proportions, because German and French marine researchers are believed to be very impressed. A system that cost less than £100 has allowed Galway's Atlantaquaria to keep fragile deep water coral alive.
What's the secret? Mr Liam Twomey, the aquarium's manager, holds back a wry smile. "We thought about it, and thought about it, and then our technical man, Adrian Brooks, approached a local publican. He asked for the loan of a beer cooler. We set it up, and it worked!" The cooling system keeps the purified water temperature at a steady nine degrees Celsius, which is the optimum for the Lophelia pertusa coral.
The coral is rarely seen as it lives at depths of 500 to 1,000 metres. It was presented to Galway by the recent Irish-French research expedition which studied the hidden oceanic fields off the Porcupine Bank.
Dr Anthony Grehan of NUI Galway's Martin Ryan Institute set up that expedition with the French state research body, Ifremer, and yesterday he gave an illustrated talk in the aquarium on the extent of the finds. His "illustrations" included lumps of actual coral recovered by fishermen and donated to him as part of his research.
"Science has to be about fun," the Minister of State for Science, Technology and Commerce, Mr Noel Treacy, emphasised in his opening address.
As he previewed the afternoon events and emphasised the importance of science and technology to Galway's industrial future, he couldn't resist bringing in a Sunday sporting dimension: "Galway has brought science to Gaelic football and others have tried to copy it over the years," Mr Treacy said.
Dr Brian Ottway of the Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology was busy showing young visitors how to look at microscopic plankton, taken that very morning from Lough Corrib, while a Co Louth marine science student, Sharon Haggins, was kitted up in her diving gear to plunge in and swim with cod, pollack and ballan wrasse.
The broadcaster and environmentalist, Dick Warner, had spent the weekend at the Galway Atlantaquaria, and yesterday spoke of its prime exhibit - the skeleton of a female fin whale.
The 19-year-old lady was stranded alive at Ballyheigue in Co Kerry in 1994 and never recovered, Mr Warner recalled. At about 19 metres long, she probably weighed 40 tonnes and would have given birth to several calves.
"Fin whales, which are second- largest after the blue whale, reach puberty by 12 years, but declining populations suggest that some may have reached that stage by the age of six," Warner explained. The most likely explanation for the stranding was an ear infection, which interferes with the cetacean's echo location system.
James Fitzpatrick (14) of Salthill, a student at St Mary's College, Galway, was soaking up everything. There's little that he doesn't know about life in the aquarium - be it the functions of the crusher and ripper claws on the spider crab, or the eating habits of the conger eels and starfish in the tanks.
For the last two summers he has worked as a voluntary tour guide on the premises, and wants to be a marine biologist. "I was born in Australia," he explained. "We lived beside a really big aquarium in Perth which was made up of one gigantic tank that you could walk under. You could see everything in it and it was really cool."
