Jailed teacher Enoch Burke has been refused an application at the Supreme Court to appeal a key judgment in his long-running case.
Burke, who has spent more than 600 days in jail and is currently in Castlerea Prison, applied to the highest court late last year referencing two separate rulings by the Court of Appeal.
He said they were at odds with each other regarding his dismissal from his job as a teacher at Wilson’s Hospital School, Co Westmeath three years ago.
Burke was a teacher at the school until his suspension in 2022, arising from his behaviour in reaction to a direction from then principal Niamh McShane on how to address a transitioning student. He was dismissed in 2023.
A confrontation arose in circumstances where McShane had earlier requested teachers to address the student by a new name, and with the pronouns “they” and “them”.
Burke, an evangelical Christian, has maintained that this request went against his religious beliefs, and has maintained since that his dismissal is due to his religious beliefs.
Soon after his 2022 suspension, the school obtained an order restraining his attendance at the school premises. He did not abide by that order, continuing to “turn up for work”, in his words, and stand at the school’s entrance throughout the school day.
His latest incarceration, ordered in January, arises from his repeated breach of the court orders to stay away from the school.
In his application to the Supreme Court, lodged in December 2025, Burke said that in a Court of Appeal judgment in 2023 Judge John Edwards ruled there was no evidence he had been suspended because of his fundamentalist Christian views.
This contrasted, said Burke, with a ruling by Judge Mary Faherty, also in the Court of Appeal, in July last year when he successfully challenged the composition of a disciplinary appeal panel which was due to hear his appeal against his dismissal from the school.
Faherty, he argued, by upholding his challenge on the basis that one of that panel’s members could be perceived by the public to promote “transgenderism”, acknowledged the merit in his argument that his religious beliefs were a factor in his dismissal.
In his submission to the Supreme Court, he sought an insertion into Faherty’s judgment of an “explicit acknowledgment” that certain aspects of Edward’s decision were “erroneous”.
He also wanted a paragraph deleted from Faherty’s ruling, in which she said there was no basis for concluding her colleague had erred.
In their determination, the members if the three-judge panel of the Supreme Court – Iseult O’Malley, Brian Murray and Maurice Collins – said: “Having [considered carefully Burke’s submissions] the court has concluded that the grounds asserted by the applicant do not meet the constitutional threshold for the grant of leave.”
The judges continued: “The applicant has not established that there is any basis on which, having prevailed in his appeal, he can utilise that procedure to procure the reformulation of that court’s analysis of one of its own earlier judgments.
“This court, being satisfied that there is no demonstrable error, issue of general importance or exigency of justice that suggests that this court entertain an appeal against the [2023] decision, hereby REFUSES (sic) this application for leave to appeal.”
Burke remains in prison as he continues to refuse to give undertakings to stay away from Wilson’s Hospital School. His appeal against his dismissal is pending.