Very slow search using basic pattern matching

I'm trying to use the following statement as part of a search facility
on a site I develop. However the search is taking in excess of 10
seconds some times to return results. I'ts a dual opteron server with a
couple gigs of RAM so should be more than enough to deal with this
database.

SELECT
da_records.RECORD_ID,
da_records.TITLE_EN AS TITLE,
da_records.AUTHOR_EN AS AUTHOR,
da_records.DESCRIPTION_CY AS DESCRIPTION,
da_records.PUBLISHER_CY AS PUBLISHER,
da_records.URL_CY AS URL,
da_records.RECORD_ID,
da_records.KEYWORD_LIST_ID,
da_records.LANGUAGE,
da_records.CONTRIBUTOR_NAME,
da_records.CONTRIBUTOR_EMAIL,
da_records.CONTRIBUTOR_ORGANISATION,
da_records.CONTRIBUTOR_CREDIT,
da_records.DEWEY_LIST_ID,
da_records.LISTING_PRIORITY,
da_records.SUBMITTED_DATE,
da_records.LAST_EDIT_DATE,
da_records.STATUS
FROM
da_records
WHERE
da_records.DESCRIPTION_CY ~* '.*Aberystwyth*.'
OR
da_records.TITLE_CY ~* '.*Aberystwyth*.'
limit 100

Is there a better way of matching the string? (Must be case insensitive)

TIA
--
Dan Field <dof(at)llgc(dot)org(dot)uk> - Support Programmer: Cymru ar y we
cy_GB: http://www.cymruarywe.org
en_GB: http://www.walesontheweb.org