There is an unconfirmed rumour that Galway couldn't possibly have been on President Clinton's itinerary last weekend because he would have had to stop at the Clarenbridge Oyster Festival.
Jokes apart, the unique qualities of the indigenous shellfish and comparisons with this newfangled "Pfizer riser" (Latin name, Viagra) were much in discussion at the festival's opening in Moran's of the Weir, Kilcolgan, last Friday night.
Initiated by the late Paddy Burke in 1954, the Clarenbridge Festival is almost on a par with the races on Galway's social calendar. A programme including a market day, lectures, bridge tournament and golf classic ensures the local community squeezes the best out of a dying summer when the oyster season opens in September.
As the Clarenbridge Oyster News notes, no one is quite sure why the native shellfish has such an international reputation for being the world's tastiest, but scientists do know that oysters from this part of Galway Bay contain a remarkable amount of vitamins and minerals. One swallow treats the body to traces of iodine, iron, copper, zinc, manganese, calcium, magnesium, phosphorus and sulphur. Unlike the Pacific oyster (Gigas), which has to be bred here in tanks due to our climate.
The Edulis or native female oyster retains her eggs and draws in sperm to fertilise them. She then releases the minute larvae to settle on hard surfaces, using a type of glue that they produce. Perhaps the extraordinary fertility is linked to the reputation for "stimulating amorous encounters", the newsletter notes.
Once the Clarenbridge and St George oyster fisheries yielded 80 per cent of the State's native crop, but stocks have fallen. A committee chaired by Michael Quinn, of the Tralee Oyster Fisheries Society, and involving representatives from the local co-operative, the festival, Bord Iascaigh Mhara (BIM), the NUI Galway Martin Ryan Institute, the Western Regional Fisheries Board and Ballindereen Community Council, has sought to increase the yield in recent years, through several initiatives funded by EU Pesca grants.
Research initiatives are being carried out under the direction of Declan Clarke, of BIM's aquaculture technical section.
The one unanswered question is how long the beds will survive, given the constant threat of flooding in the south Galway area, which reached crisis level in 1994/1995.
As a consultants' report associated with the Office of Public Works Flood Study has noted, changing climatic conditions may sweep more freshwater into Dunbulcan Bay, the inlet that is home to Clarenbridge oysters. The shellfish are big drinkers, filtering nutrients from seawater at a rate of two gallons an hour. They do not like the fresh fluid one little bit . . .