not defeated, that they made good their landing, and
that they spread and occupied the whole of Penwith
and Carnmarth, that is to say, the entire district
of West Cornwall up to Camborne and the Lizard
district.
The colonists cannot have been few, and they must have purposed settling, for they brought women along with them ; and that they were successful is assured by the fact that those killed by Tewdrig are recognised as martyrs. Had the Irish been driven away they would have been regarded as pirates who had met their deserts.
Now this inroad of saints was but one out of a succession of incursions, and the resistance of Tewdrig marks the revolt against Irish domination which took place after the death of Dathi in 428, the last Irish monarch who was able to exact tribute from Britain; though Oiliol Molt may have attempted it, he was too much hampered by internal wars to make Irish authority felt in Britain. Oiliol fell in 483.
The Irish saints came across in detachments. Senan, Ere (Erth), Setna (Sithney), Brig (Breage), Just were some of the earliest. There was trouble when Brig arrived, and she and her party fled from Tewdrig and fortified themselves on Tregonning Hill, where their camp still remains. But Kieran and his pupils, Medran (Madron) and Bruinech (Buriena), were unmolested ; so also was S. Ruan.
One thing they could not do, and that was impress on the people the Scottish or Irish pronunciation. They were few among many, and they not only could not make the natives pronounce a
