Atlantean was a trilogy of documentary films made by Irish film maker Bob Quinn in 1983. These films dismissed as myth the popular belief in "Celtic" origins of the inhabitants of Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, Asturias, Brittany and Galicia. Focusing on the role of sailing in Connemara society, where his films were made, Quinn investigated the history of the Atlantic sea lanes from the Baltic Sea and the British Isles as far south as the Mediterranean and North Africa. Quinn suggested that Ireland's first inhabitants came by boat sometime after the end of the last ice age - probably from the warmer, more populous south. As navigation gave rise to coastal settlement over long periods of time, overseas trade and cultural exchanges continued until at least the Vikings. The Irish language, music and art was therefore related to ancient Iberian, Mediterranean and North African culture, in particular the indigenous Berbers of North Africa.
According to Quinn, the idea of "Celtic" origins was probably invented by Christian intellectuals in the Middle Ages eager to affirm a "racial" pan-European identity amongst the unusual inhabitants of the western seaboards.
Bob Quinn developed these ideas into a book: The Atlantean Irish.
The Celtic theory has long been questioned by academics. In recent years, the discovery of mitochondrial DNA has been used as a method to map the historical migration of mankind's genetic groups. Such genetic tests, conducted in Ireland in 2004, confirmed that the theory of Celtic origins in Ireland is genetically unfounded. In earlier tests, Bryan Sykes, genetic scientist and author of bestseller The Seven Daughters of Eve, while analysing European DNA groups identified what he called the "Clan of Tara" – a genetic group that included the coastal peoples of the British Isles, the Atlantic seaboards of continental Europe and the coasts of the Mediterranean. Sykes did not conduct genetic tests in North Africa amongst Berbers.