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, which was presumably Brythonic. It may be best explained as the work of some western Celt who reached Silchester before its British citizens abandoned it in despair. We do not know the date of that event, though we may conjecturally put it before, and perhaps a good many years before, A.D. 500. In any case, an Ogam monument had been set up before it occurred, and the presence of such an object would seem to prove that Celtic things had made their way even into this eastern Romanized town. [Footnote 1: _Archaeologia_, liv. 233, 441; Rhys and Brynmor Jones, _Welsh People_, pp. 45, 65; _Victoria Hist. of Hampshire_, i. 279; _English Hist. Review_, xix. 628. Whether the man who wrote was Irish or British depends on the answer to the question set forth in the preceding note. Unfortunately, we do not know when the Ogam script came first into use. Professor Rhys tells me that the Silchester example may quite conceivably belong to the fifth century.] [Illustration: FIG. 21. OGAM INSCRIPTION FROM SILCHESTER.]