Robbie MeredithBBC News NI education and arts correspondent
PA Media
Enoch Burke at the High Court, in Dublin, in October 2025
The Irish teacher Enoch Burke has been returned to prison by the High Court in Dublin.
Mr Justice Cregan said that Mr Burke and members of his family had engaged in a “deliberate, sustained and concerted attack” on the authority of the civil courts and the rule of law.
He said Mr Burke had refused to obey a court order not to trespass at Wilson’s Hospital School, in County Westmeath, for three years and described his actions as a “fanatical campaign”.
Mr Burke was initially suspended from the school in 2022 for refusing to call a transgender pupil by the surname ‘they’, and “the manner in which he conducted his objection to transgenderism,” towards the principle, according to the judgement.
The school also obtained an injunction restraining Mr Burke from trespassing on the school premises, which he has defied a number of times.
Mr Burke has also accumulated around €225,000 (£198,118) in fines, of which he has paid around €40,000 (£35,221) due to his teacher’s salary being diverted to pay his fines.
Mr Justice Cregan said that “despite his time in prison, and despite these fines, Mr Burke persists in disobeying the court order.”
In August 2025, members of the Burke family confronted the chair of the Education Authority Mervyn Storey at a County Antrim church over gender identity issues.
In his ruling on Tuesday, Judge Cregan said his decision was not about transgenderism.
“If Mr Burke had been directed by the court to comply with the principal’s direction, and to refer to a pupil by their new pronoun, against his religious beliefs and he refused, then it would be about transgenderism,” his judgement said.
‘A crisis among the pupils’
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The judge said Mr Burke had not been imprisoned or fined for his views on transgender issues, which he was perfectly entitled to have.
He said the court had directed that Mr Burke must not trespass on school premises as he had been dismissed from his position for gross misconduct.
But the judge said that Mr Burke had entered the school or remained at the school entrance for a number of days in early November.
“I have no doubt that Mr Burke’s actions have caused a crisis among the pupils of the school, the teachers and the Board of Management,” the judge said.
“Instead of concentrating on the noble task of educating the young people of tomorrow, they are having to deal with Mr Burke and his antics.”
He said that Mr Burke was willing to sacrifice the pupils of the school “on the altar of his fanatical campaign against transgenderism”.
The judge said that Mr Burke had not acknowledged the distinction between issues of transgenderism and issues in relation to court orders.
Ruling that Mr Burke should be sent to prison for deliberate and persistent contempt of the High Court, Mr Justice Cregan said he would give another ruling on other issues in the case next week.
