Founding father of the famous monastery on the island of Iona, a site of pilgrimage ever since his death in 597, St Columba was born into one of the ruling families in Ireland at a time of immense expansion for the Irish Church. This account of his life, written by Adomnán - the ninth abbot of Iona, and a distant relative of St Columba - describes his travels from Ireland to Scotland and his mission in the cause of Celtic Christianity there. Written 100 years after St Columba's death, it draws on written and oral traditions to depict a wise abbot among his monks, who like Christ was capable of turning water into wine, controlling sea-storms and raising the dead. An engaging account of one of the central figures in the 'Age of Saints', this is a major work of early Irish and Scottish history.

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This book studies the Irish law dating from AD 697, called Lex Innocentium or the Law of the Innocents. It is also known as Cáin Adomnáin, being named after Adomnán (d. 704), ninth abbot of Iona, who was responsible for its drafting and promulgation. The law was designed to offer legislative protection for women, children, clerics and other non-arms-bearing people, primarily though not exclusively, in times of conflict. It will be of interest to historians, both professional and lay, in many fields, with special relevance for historians of warfare, the laws of war, and of attitudes towards violence in general. The study seeks to identify the place of this law in the history of the laws of war and, in so doing examines many of the relevant sources in the Christian West, with conclusions that some will find surprising.

Adomnán (c.625-704) was ninth abbot of the monastery on Iona off the Scottish coast. Adomnán came from what is now County Donegal. He was one of the most significant churchmen and intellectuals of the seventh century. The copying and re-copying of his written works meant that, in medieval times, his reputation spread widely on the Continent. He was, in modern parlance, an 'all-rounder': monk, priest, manager, writer, historian, lawmaker and diplomat, to name just a few things. He was the author of one of the first laws, anywhere, for the protection of non-combatants in times of conflict, and compiled an exegetical 'guide-book' to the 'sites' of the Holy Land - the oldest surviving text of its kind from anywhere in Western Europe. He also wrote a major hagiographical 'Life' of his predecessor and distant relative Columba. So powerful and influential a text was that book that it all but shoved Adomnán himself out of the limelight, in favour of his illustrious forerunner. Although much has been written about individual aspects of Adomnán's career, this is the first study to outline the totality of his life and reputation - in so far as we can know it!