Clarification on article 'Scepticism over academic's Atlantis theory'

On 11/08/2004, we published an article relating to a visit to Ireland by Dr Ulf Erlingsson, who has commented on a possible link between the geography of Ireland and that of Plato's Atlantis.

Dr Erlingsson has since contacted us to clarify his position on the subject as follows below:

"Atlantis is a literary construction by Plato. The existence of Atlantis has never been proven. On the contrary, we know for a fact that it was a utopia, something that I point out on page 1 in my book Atlantis from a Geographer's Perspective: Mapping the Fairy Land. I quote: "Nobody by his right mind is denying that part of Plato's story about Atlantis is fiction."

"The purpose of the book is, however, to test Plato's other claim, namely that he based the utopia on a real, historic place.

"In the book I erect and test the hypothesis that Plato based the description of Plato's Atlantis on the geography of Ireland, and find that with 99.98% probability the hypothesis is true. I do not believe that he based the city of Atlantis on anything on Ireland, but do speculate that he may have partly based the description of certain temples on Newgrange and Knowth, and that the hill may be inspired by Tara.

"The scientific value of this research is of course not that Atlantis has been 'found' (can you find something that has never existed?), but that it begs the question how Plato could be familiar with the Irish reality. As with all scientific hypotheses, this one must now be subjected to a critical review by peers."