A.D. 265-70--though there does not
seem to be any very good reason for it--the Dessi or Deisi were expelled
from Meath and a part of them settled in the south-west of Wales, in the
land then called Demetia. This was a region which was both thinly
inhabited and imperfectly Romanized. In it fugitives from Ireland might
easily find room. The settlement may have been formed, as Professor Bury
suggests, with the consent of the Imperial Government and under
conditions of service. But we are entirely ignorant whether these exiles
from Ireland numbered tens or scores or hundreds, and this uncertainty
renders speculation dangerous. If the newcomers were few and their new
homes were in the remote west beyond Carmarthen (Maridunum), formal
consent would hardly have been required. Other Irish immigrants probably
followed. Their settlements were apparently confined to Cornwall and the
south-west coast of Wales, and their influence may easily be overrated.
Some, indeed, came as enemies, though perhaps rather as enemies to the
Roman than to the Celtic elements in the province. Such must have been
Niall of the Nine Hostages, who was killed--according to the traditional
chronology--about A.D. 405 on the British coast and perhaps in the
Channel itself.

[Footnote 1: Professor Rhys, _Cambrian Archaeol. Assoc. Kerry Meeting_,
1891, and _Celtic Britain_ (ed. 3, 1904, p. 247), is inclined to
minimize the invasions of southern Britain (Cornwall and Wales).
Professor Bury (_Life of St. Patrick_, p. 288) tends to emphasize them;
see also Zimmer, _Nennius Vindicatus_, pp. 84 foll., and Kuno Meyer,
_Cymmrodorion Transactions_, 1895-6, pp. 55 foll. The decision of the
question seems to depend upon whether we should regard the Goidelic
elements visible in western Britain as due in part to an original
Goidelic population or ascribe them wholly to Irish immigrants. At
present philologists do not seem able to speak with certainty on this
point. But the evidence for some amount of invasion seems adequate.]

All this must have contributed to the reintroduction of Celtic national
feeling and culture. A Celtic immigrant, it may be, was the man who set
up the Ogam pillar at Silchester (Fig. 21), which was discovered in the
excavations of 1893.[1] The circumstances of the discovery show that
this pillar belongs to the very latest period in the history of Calleva.
Its inscription is Goidelic: that is, it does not belong to the ordinary
Callevan population,