Conflict in early medieval Ireland, Adomnán of Iona and the law of the Innocents (697 AD): an early Law of war

This article explores the making of the Irish Law of the Innocents that sought to protect women, children, clerics and other non-arms-bearing people in periods of conflict, people usually referred to in contemporary language as non-combatants. The law refers to them as ‘innocents’, coming from the Latin nocere, to hurt and innocere for those who do not hurt. The law stands alone for many centuries as an early form of jus in bello while western Christendom was preoccupied with jus ad bellum issues. The article examines the society from which the law emerged, and introduces the reader to the abbot of Iona, Adomnán, the inspirational figure in the law’s drafting. The article considers how the law contrasts with the dominant Augustinian Christian tradition that stressed the importance of when it was right to go to war while largely neglecting the issue of right conduct during the course of war. Finally, the article traces how the law evolved and was perceived in the following centuries until the final eclipse of the old Gaelic order in Ireland in the seventeenth century.