  In the limit of low viscosity, we show that the amplitude of the modes of
oscillation of a rotating fluid, namely inertial modes, concentrate along an
attractor formed by a periodic orbit of characteristics of the underlying
hyperbolic Poincar\'e equation. The dynamics of characteristics is used to
elaborate a scenario for the asymptotic behaviour of the eigenmodes and
eigenspectrum in the physically relevant r\'egime of very low viscosities which
are out of reach numerically. This problem offers a canonical ill-posed Cauchy
problem which has applications in other fields.
