Birr’s Law of Innocents
Archived: 1 November 2026
Abstract
In 697 CE, the most consequential Irish development securely associated with the year was Adomnán of Iona’s promulgation of the Cáin Adomnáin, the ‘Law of Adomnán’, at Birr in what is now County Offaly. The Irish annals record tersely that Adomnán came to Ireland and gave the Lex Innocentium, or Law of Innocents, to the people. Behind that spare notice lies an unusually ambitious attempt to regulate the conduct of war across a politically divided island and, in principle, across the Irish Sea. A Year with a Chronological Caveat Early Irish annals do not always align neatly with modern calendar