A pseudo-history of Atlantis?

There is something I've read about the colonization of Ireland that is interesting. As usual, I won't cite anything accurately or scholarly-like, but I once read a book which I believe was called "The History of Ireland" which was in the library of Catholic University in Washington DC. My wife studied there, and from time to time I would have to go help her with this or that and I ended up wiling away some time at the library.

So what I remember of this book went something like this: Ireland for the longest time was uninhabited. There was once a settlement of Phoenicians or people similar to these. There was some manner of cataclysm that befell these people, which caused them to "fall to the ground, trembling, breaking their elbows" and suffer other ills, and they were annihilated, leaving the island once again uninhabited.

Then, later, there were the Gael, who came from Northern Spain. A more involved tale has the original Gael people emigrating from Egypt, where although well connected to the Pharaoh they had fallen into disfavor due to their sympathies with the Israelites. They left Egypt via the Mediterranean Sea, crossing it and heading up the Danube, which was at that time a more completely passable waterway that traversed the whole of Europe longitudinally. These exited out of the north of Europe, sailing around the edge of the coast until finally coming to rest on the Northern Iberian peninsula (Galicia). Further conflicts caused a portion of them to leave Galicia and sail north, where they encountered the island we call Ireland (Erin). Through a series of efforts, battles and alliances, most notably with the Picts, they established the kingdom of Dalriada, which spanned both Ireland, the Scottish Isles and mainland Scotland.

Now, more mysteriously, which is to say more blogworthily, it may well have been that the earliest civilization on Ireland was not Phoenician, but  Atlantean . The theory is that Ireland was the seat of the fabled Atlantean culture, and they suffered a calamity that led to their downfall. Moreover, the calamity was due to the Atlanteans turning away from "the Children of Light" and instead towards darkness.

There are in various places scattered writings referred to as "The Emerald Tablets of Thoth". There is an alchemical 'primer' that has several key phrases that are rumored to be the basis for all alchemical study and experimentation that is referred to by this name, and also a series of verses that \are purported to be Thoth's own words, describing his life and his effort to faithfully record the knowledge of Atlantis for future generations. These more elaborate tablets are said to have been translated by someone calling himself Dr. Doreal, whose origins are fairly normal but whose writing dealt with subjects ranging from Occult interpretations of Biblical scripture to the nature of UFOs. His critics soundly proclaim he fabricated the legacy of Thoth, having been influenced by books like Tarzan and later sci-fi/fantasy fiction.

Whether or not he "channeled" Thoth or created a fantasy theosophy, "Dr. Maurice Doreal's" Emerald Tablets of Thoth are wonderfully written in a lofty sort of Hermetic language, and are laden with appealing symbolic interconnections and allusions to ancient "science/magick" types of technology. It's very interesting stuff that splits off into various tangents "Children of the Light" vs. darker types, "Atlantean immortals" on one hand and "the little people of Khem" on the other. There are assertions of hidden chambers of wisdom and power beneath the Greaty Pyramids, as well as science/magick that allows people to travel astrally, be incarnate or not as is their will, and the notion of beings controlling aspects of the behavior of gravity, space and time.