his return to 80 and his death to 100. The Lebor Gabála Érenn places him a little later, synchronising his exile with the reign of the Roman emperor Domitian (81–96), his return early in the reign of Hadrian (122–138) and his death in the reign of Antoninus Pius (138–161). The first of the Goidels? The scholar T. F. O'Rahilly suggested that, as in many such "returned exile" stories, Túathal represented an entirely foreign invasion which established a dynasty in Ireland, whose dynastic propagandists fabricated an Irish origin for him to give him some spurious legitimacy. In fact, he proposed that Túathal's story, pushed back to the 1st or 2nd century BC, represented the invasion of the Goidels, who established themselves over the earlier populations and introduced the Q-Celtic language that would become Irish, and that their genealogists incorporated all Irish dynasties, Goidelic or otherwise, and their ancestor deities into a pedigree stretching back over a thousand years to the fictitious Míl Espáine. Professor Dáithí Ó hÓgáin reckoned his Celtic name was Teutovalos ('tribe-ruler') and he was a great leader of the northern branch of the Venii tribe, or the 'people of Condos' who overthrew the kingship of the Lagini at Tara. When the genealogies were written a few centuries later his name was noted as 'Tuathal', and the epithet teachtmhar, a Celtic compound meaning 'appropriator of wealth' was added referring to his followers large-scale raids on the British coast. The Venii's special designation for themselves became Gaídhil, i.e. Goidels, and their principal groups were called Connachta and Eoghanacht. Romans in Ireland? Taking the native dating as broadly accurate, another theory has emerged. The Roman historian Tacitus mentions that Agricola, while governor of Roman Britain (AD 78–84), entertained an exiled Irish prince, thinking to use him as a pretext for a possible conquest of Ireland. Neither Agricola nor his successors ever conquered Ireland, but in recent years archaeology has challenged the belief that the Romans never set foot on the island. Roman and Romano-British artefacts have been found primarily in Leinster, notably a fortified site on the promontory of Drumanagh, fifteen miles north of Dublin, and burials on the nearby island of Lambay, both close to where Túathal is supposed to have landed, and other sites associated with Túathal such as Tara and Clogher. However, whether this is evidence of trade, diplomacy or military activity is a matter of controversy. It