Company name
Mara Beo Teo, Dingle Oceanworld Aquarium
Location
An Choill, An Daingean, Co Kerry
Grant
Feasibility grants, capital grants
Dates
On-going since 1990
Project
Mara Beo Teo, or Oceanworld, in An Daingean is one of the largest aquariums in Ireland. It has a shark tank, a sea horse tank, a surge tank with anemones and shell fish, a cylindrical tank with tropical fish, an Amazonian tank with catfish, poisonous frogs and deadly piranha; a touch pool where you can stroke the starfish and ray, and an ocean tunnel where fish swim all around you and overhead. It gets 100,000 visitors annually and is one of the most complete aquatic tours anywhere.
Údarás gave initial support with a feasibility grant in 1990 and began converting the building – a former school - into a state-of-the-art aquarium in 1994; it also bought shares in the company. The aquarium opened in April 1996 and has since expanded three times.
Results
Says Kevin Flannery, director secretary of Mara Beo: “This was something I’d wanted to do for a long time. I love weird and wonderful fish. In the 1990s Údarás stepped in and helped us start up. We were a huge tourist attraction from day one, and we’ve just gone from strength to strength. We’ve now bought the building from Údarás.”
Perspective
Mara Beo Teo is currently setting up subsidiaries – a hatchery, and an oyster farm. These companies will be commercially independent, and Údarás will help to develop them. See www.dingle-oceanworld.ie