On July 18 1912, as the British prime minister Herbert Asquith and Irish nationalist leader John Redmond travelled along Sackville Street (now O’Connell Street) in Dublin in an open carriage, a suffragette protester, Mary Leigh, threw a hatchet at Asquith. The hatchet missed him but grazed Redmond’s ear.

Asquith went to Dublin to make a speech on Home Rule in the Theatre Royal, so a number of English suffragettes followed him to disrupt his visit.

The group included Gladys Evans, who tried to burn down the Theatre Royal. Mary Leigh and Evans both got five years. They went on hunger strike, but that’s another story.

Fast forward to 2024 and a founder of Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion got five years for blocking the M25 and four other protesters got four years, the longest sentences handed down for peaceful protest in British legal history.

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Now, there’s a helluva difference between throwing a hatchet at the prime minister or attempted arson of a theatre and blocking traffic on a motorway.

The sentences caused widespread condemnation. The UN special rapporteur on environmental defenders, Michel Forst, attended the trial and afterwards issued a statement.

“Today is a dark day for peaceful........

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