A Swedish monster-hunter claims to have solved the centuries-old question of the famous Lough Ree monster, and claims it is almost certainly a Vampire Lamprey eel.
The theory has killed any hope of a Loch Ness monster-type spin-off for the local tourist industry.
There have been reported sightings of the famous Lough Ree monster for hundreds of years, but the most recent one came in 1960 from three priests on a fishing trip near Glasson, Athlone.
They spotted "a very strange object which was moving slowly on the flat, calm surface, about 80 yards away".
The priests said they saw "a serpent-like head" which tapered "rather abruptly to a point". They reckoned the creature to be over 20 feet long.
However, now a Swedish monster-hunter, Mr Jan Sundberg, who carried out a search mission on Lough Ree three years ago, has told the Westmeath Independent newspaper that the monster is in fact a Vampire Lamprey eel.
Lampreys don't have bone structures, and they breathe through a series of gill openings. They have a primitive mouth which they use as a sucker.
Mr Sundberg was joined by two colleagues from Hawaii and Norway during his search mission, and they searched the lake by lowering a listening device to identify any unusual sequences of sounds.
"We got some sounds, but they couldn't be identified. They were interesting, but it wasn't any sound we could identify," said Mr Sundberg.
He said interviews conducted by the team led them to the Vampire Lamprey eel conclusion.
"There was a guy somewhere along the lake whom we interviewed. He had found dead sheep and cattle along the shores emptied of all blood.
"At another place a farmer had seen that some kind of creature was more or less entangled around a cow. It was described as some sort of huge eel-like monster. We thought, my God, what could it have been?"
A possible answer came via a local eel fisherman, who told the investigation team of an incident when a lamprey, 1½ metres long, came up around the boat oar and attempted to get into the boat.
With more and more stories of large lampreys being told to the researchers, the team began to wonder if this could be the source of the monster legend.
Mr Sundberg said he had no doubts as to the sincerity of the witnesses who had seen the lampreys.