Rain with scattered showers and the odd tidal wave

With the necessary allowance for it being the silly season, here's one of the major items from the Irish Times news update page today (subs. req'd) -- the remarks of a scientist, or perhaps a "scientist," who claims that Ireland is the lost kingdom of Atlantis. Strangely enough, the central focus of his theory is on the historical sites of County Meath, which as we noted a few days ago, is also believed by a sample of British people to be the location of Helms Deep from Lord of the Rings. But anyway:

Dr Ulf Erlingsson, whose radical theories have caused a storm of debate, is on a three-day tour here to prove Ireland contains remnants of the mythical land described by Greek philosopher Plato in 370 BC.

Dr Erlingsson, 44, today visited Newgrange and Knowth megalithic passage tombs in Co Meath which he believes are linked to the ancient temples of Poseidon and the Ancestors in Atlantis. He also believes the Atlantis capital can be connected with Tara in Co Meath - the legendary seat of the high kings of Ireland.

He said:"...And Plato said that 10 kings met in the Atlantis capital every five years, which would equate with Tara's historical connection with the high kings."
...The geologist's theories are contained in his book Atlantis from a Geographer's Perspective: Mapping the Fairy Land, to be published next month.

Besides our instinctive reaction of "who are you calling a fairy, dude?" we had to look up to see what other telling correspondences between Ireland and Atlantis might be. So:

[wikipedia] westwards from that island [Britain], there were the three islands of Cronus, to where proud and warlike men used to come from the continent beyond the islands, in order to offer sacrifice to the gods of the ocean.

Which indeed matches the modern day practice of proud and warlike men coming in from the counties beyond Meath to gloat about recent football results, and as a result offering themselves as sacrifices to enraged local toughs. Slightly more seriously, the Swede doesn't seem to have much evidence beyond the fact that Ireland is an island where it rains a lot, and the only known geological event that sounds like Atlantis was in the Dogger Bank in the North Sea, now only known for its iconic daily role in BBC's Shipping Forecast. But what would science fiction and fantasy be without a few good speculations? Thus now that R Morgenstern's beloved TV show Stargate has been supplemented with Stargate: Atlantis, we expect to hear many brogues in the latter show in the near future.