A Better Day is Breaking

Photograph: E Cooper.

Almost a hundred people – rulers, leaders and officers of the church – were gathered together in the small hall.

The convener of the assembly rose to his feet – a grey-headed man of almost seventy years. Everyone fell silent.

‘Welcome, honourable friends,’ said the convenor with a smile.

‘I know very well that some of you have been at each other’s throats in years past. Be that as it may, I would respectfully ask you to put all enmity and suspicion to one side.

‘I ask you to do this because I have a new law, a law of the greatest importance, to set before you.

‘Is there anyone present here today who has not seen the body of a child or infant killed in battle and heard weeping and wailing, mothers weeping for their children because they are alive no longer?

‘Is there anyone present here who has not seen a child in anguish, howling beside the cold body of his mother on the field of battle?

‘Honourable friends, I place before you the Law of the Innocents, the Lex Innocentium, which decrees that our warriors are forbidden from maiming or killing women, children or people of religion under any circumstances.

‘There is not, nor was there ever, a law like this to protect non-combatants even though mankind has taken pleasure in war since the beginning of time.

‘But we today are courageous, just and civilised men. A better day is dawning. Will we swear an oath to accept wholeheartedly the Lex Innocenti so that the slaughter of non-combatants will never happen again?

‘Honourable friends, would you please rise to your feet to show that you sanction this new legislation?’

With one mind, every man in the hall rose to his feet.

Synod of Birr, Ireland 697 AD

Post-script. In 697 AD, Adomnán, the ninth Abbot of Iona convened a synod in Birr, a small town in the centre of Ireland. Adomnán was renowned as a man of great ability and the most influential kings, warlords, leaders and churchmen came from Britain and Ireland to the synod. Ninety-one men signed the Lex Innocentium that day. There was no clearer law regarding non-combatants until the Fourth Geneva Convention was ratified in 1949.

Photograph: G Cooper. Birr, May 2017.