{"id":325356,"date":"2026-03-02T18:39:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-02T18:39:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/325356\/"},"modified":"2026-03-02T18:39:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-02T18:39:07","slug":"transfer-of-enoch-burke-to-castlerea-prison-has-no-basis-in-law-brother-claims-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/325356\/","title":{"rendered":"Transfer of Enoch Burke to Castlerea Prison has \u2018no basis in law\u2019, brother claims \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jailed teacher Enoch Burke<\/a> has been transferred to Castlerea Prison in Co Roscommon<\/a> in a move that has \u201cno basis in law\u201d, his brother has told the High Court<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Isaac Burke said the transfer occurred \u201cwithout warning or notice\u201d on Sunday morning despite the court\u2019s order stating Enoch Burke \u201cshall be detained in Mountjoy Prison<\/a>\u201d in Dublin<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt specifically mentions a specific prison,\u201d he said of the order of last January 19th, which he said has been \u201cbreached by the prison authorities\u201d.<\/p>\n

Isaac Burke said his brother \u201cshould not be detained at all\u201d, but \u201cat the very least\u201d should be left in the jail as ordered by the High Court.<\/p>\n

Judge Brian Cregan said that, although he did not doubt what he was being told, there was no actual evidence before the court that Enoch Burke had been moved.<\/p>\n

If Isaac or Enoch Burke want to contest the transfer, he said they should bring a formal application before the court on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sorry this is a matter of the court\u2019s order being breached,\u201d Isaac Burke said, adding that his brother has been given no explanation for the transfer.<\/p>\n

The judge said the prison authorities may have a different view and these issues would need to be teased out.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0The Burkes are back in town (again) \u2013 and they insist the judge won\u2019t winOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

He told him to write to the relevant prison governors indicating that the matter would come before the court on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Isaac Burke said he was \u201cgravely concerned\u201d that an order of the court was being breached by the prison authorities.<\/p>\n

The judge asked him what time would suit for the application to be heard on Tuesday, to which Isaac Burke replied that he was before the court on Monday and ready to make his application. <\/p>\n

The judge then moved on to the rest of his court\u2019s list.<\/p>\n

Enoch Burke is incarcerated for contempt of court as he has repeatedly breached an order to stay away from his former place of work, Wilson\u2019s Hospital School in Co Westmeath. <\/p>\n

Burke has repeatedly claimed his imprisonment is related to his religious beliefs and views on transgender issues. This assertion has been rejected by several High Court judges.<\/p>\n

The Court of Appeal<\/a> last week granted Burke an expedited hearing of his attempt to challenge a High Court judgment<\/a> handed down almost three years ago banning him from Wilson\u2019s Hospital School.<\/p>\n

In May 2023, Judge Alexander Owens ruled the school had validly suspended him from his teaching position. The judge ordered that Burke should be restrained from attending at the school premises.<\/p>\n

The school suspended and later dismissed Burke over his conduct towards the then-principal, Niamh McShane, at a school religious event in June 2022. <\/p>\n

The confrontation arose after McShane requested teachers to address a student by a new name and with the pronouns \u201cthey\u201d and \u201cthem\u201d. Burke, an evangelical Christian, maintains this request went against his religious beliefs.<\/p>\n

His appeal against his dismissal from his teaching job has yet to be fully heard and determined by a disciplinary appeals panel. Two disciplinary appeals panels have been dissolved without fully hearing the appeal. <\/p>\n

Last week, an action taken by Burke was struck out<\/a> and deemed moot after two of the panel members resigned last month on foot of legal advice and a third member accepted she could not be part of a reconvened panel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jailed teacher Enoch Burke has been transferred to Castlerea Prison in Co Roscommon in a move that has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":325357,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[10202,615,43693,73,61,60,89406,43,21727],"class_list":["post-325356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-court-of-appeal","tag-dublin","tag-enoch-burke","tag-high-court","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-mountjoy-prison","tag-news","tag-roscommon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=325356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325356\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/325357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=325356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=325356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=325356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}