Adomnán of Iona

Saint Adomnán, venerable, was abbot of the monastery of Iona from 679 to 704. He wrote the Life of Saint Columba, the most important work to survive from early Christian Scotland, and his name is linked also with a law that protected the innocent in time of war. He is commemorated on 23 September.

Beginnings

He was born around 624 in the region of Donegal in the north of Ireland, in the kindred Cenél Conaill, to which Saint Columba also belonged, and he was a relative of Columba on his father’s side. He was the son of Rónán and Ronat. It is believed that he began his monastic life at a monastery founded by Columba, perhaps Druim Tuamma, and that he came to Iona. There he gained a learning that was rare in those times, knowing well Holy Scripture and the Latin and Greek languages.

Abbot of Iona

In 679 Adomnán became the ninth abbot of Iona after Columba. He was a friend of King Aldfrith of Northumbria, who had lived for a time on Iona. In 686 he went to Northumbria and obtained the release of sixty Irishmen carried off into captivity in an English raid. He made several journeys to the English and in time adopted the Roman date of Easter, decided at the Synod of Whitby. The monks of Iona would not accept it, and he went to Ireland and pressed the Irish to accept it.

The Law of Innocents

In 697, at a gathering of Irish, Dál Riatan and Pictish leaders held at Birr, he promulgated the Cáin Adomnáin, the “Law of Adomnán”, a set of rules meant to protect those who do not fight, above all women and children, and for that reason also called the Law of Innocents.

Writings

The Life of Columba, probably written between 697 and 700, is the chief source for the life of the monastery of Iona and for the Picts. He also composed On the Holy Places, a description of the great places of Christian pilgrimage, drawn from the account of the Frankish bishop Arculf, who had visited Egypt, Rome, Constantinople and the Holy Land and afterwards came to Iona.

Repose

The saint fell asleep on Iona in 704. Two cathedrals in Ireland, at Letterkenny and at Raphoe, bear his name in the form Eunan.