The Cáin Adomnáin, also known as the Lex Innocentium (Law of Innocents), was promulgated amongst a gathering of Irish, Dál Riatan and Pictish notables at the Synod of Birr in 697. It is called the “Geneva Accords” of the ancient Irish and Europe’s first human rights treaty, for its protection of women and non-combatants, extending the Law of Patrick, which protected monks, to civilians. The legal symposium at the Synod of Birr was prompted when Adomnáin had an Aisling dream vision wherein his mother excoriated him for not protecting the women and children of Ireland.
If a woman committed murder, arson, or theft from a church, she was to be set adrift in a boat with one paddle and a container of gruel. This left the judgment up to God and avoided violating the proscription against killing a woman
It’s not my fault if she dies out on the boat, that’s God’s will
