Cáin Adomnáin

The Cáin Adomnáin (Law of Adomnán), also known as the Lex Innocentium (Law of Innocents), was promulgated amongst a gathering of Irish, Dál Riatan and Pictish notables at the Synod of Birr in 697. It is named after its initiator Adomnán of Iona, ninth Abbot of Iona after St. Columba. It is called the "Geneva Accords" of the ancient Irish, for its protection of women & non-combatants, extending the Law of Patrick, which protected monks, to civilians. The legal symposium at the Synod of Birr was prompted when Adomnáin had an aisling dream vision wherein his mother excoriated him for not protecting the women & children of Ireland.

According to D.N. Dumville, it is suspected that the promulgation of this law in 697 was a centennial commemoration of Columba, who died in 597. As a successor of Columba of Iona, Adomnán had sufficient prestige to assemble a conference of 91 chieftains and clerics from Ireland, Dál Riata, and Pictland at Birr to promulgate the new law. As well as being the site of a significant monastery, associated with Saint Brendan of Birr, Birr was close to the boundary between the Uí Néill-dominated northern half of Ireland, and the southern half, where the kings of Munster ruled. It, therefore, represented a form of neutral ground where the rival kings and clerics of both sides of Ireland could meet.

Various factors, including Marian devotion in seventh- and eighth-century Ireland, are supposed to have contributed to inspire Adomnán to introduce these laws, but it may also be that as Columba's biographer, he was prompted by the saint's example. It was originally known as the Law of the Innocents and focused on the beneficiary noncombatants. Upon its renewal in 727, it referenced its author.

The indigenous Brehon Laws were committed to parchment about the 7th century, most likely by clerics. Most scholars now believe that the secular laws were not compiled independently of monasteries. Adomnan would have had access to the best legal minds of his generation.

This set of laws were designed, among other things, to guarantee the safety and immunity of various types of noncombatants in warfare. It required, for example, that "whoever slays a woman... his right hand and his left foot shall be cut off before death, and then he shall die."

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