{"id":414400,"date":"2026-04-24T01:22:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T01:22:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/414400\/"},"modified":"2026-04-24T01:22:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T01:22:07","slug":"oral-hearing-to-assess-enoch-burkes-dismissal-will-go-ahead-high-court-rules-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/414400\/","title":{"rendered":"Oral hearing to assess Enoch Burke\u2019s dismissal will go ahead, High Court rules \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

An oral hearing of jailed teacher Enoch Burke<\/a>\u2019s appeal against his dismissal from Wilson\u2019s Hospital School will go ahead after the High Court<\/a> refused an application to defer it on Thursday evening.<\/p>\n

Justice Miche\u00e1l O\u2019Connell turned down Burke\u2019s application that a disciplinary appeals panel due to hear his appeal against dismissal should be deferred pending the outcome of his application to the Court of Appeal<\/a> for a late hearing of his appeal against a High Court decision of 2023. <\/p>\n

That 2023 decision was where the court found that his suspension from the school was lawful and it also imposed a permanent injunction restraining him from trespassing on the school in Co Westmeath<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Despite that, he has repeatedly disobeyed it and other orders that he not trespass and has now spent more than 650 days in prison for contempt of court and remains there.<\/p>\n

The school suspended \u2013 and later dismissed \u2013 Burke over his conduct towards the then-principal Niamh McShane at a school religious event in June 2022.<\/p>\n

The confrontation arose in circumstances where McShane had earlier directed teachers to address a student by a new name and with the pronouns \u201cthey\u201d and \u201cthem\u201d. Burke, an evangelical Christian, has maintained this request went against his religious beliefs.<\/p>\n

He did not appeal the 2023 High Court decision and time ran out to do so. As a result, he had to apply to the Court of Appeal for an extension of time to be allowed to appeal. On Wednesday, the three-judge Court of Appeal reserved its decision on that application. <\/p>\n

On Thursday, he asked Justice Brian Cregan to hear his application to for an order to defer Friday\u2019s scheduled disciplinary appeals panel hearing pending the outcome of the Court of Appeal case. <\/p>\n

However, he first asked that his application be heard by another judge because he said Cregan was guilty of objective bias given comments he had made in two previous judgments dealing with his case. <\/p>\n

Cregan rejected his claims of objective bias but said that justice not only needs to be done but seen to be done. He therefore would not hear the case, recused himself, and said O\u2019Connell had agreed to hear it in the afternoon. <\/p>\n

Among his arguments before O\u2019Connell, Burke said that the issue the Court of Appeal is dealing with \u2013 the validity of the 2022 instruction by the school principal about how to address a student \u2013 would also be central to the deliberations of the disciplinary appeals panel. <\/p>\n

There was also the fact that the panel had said it would have to have regard to High Court findings which include the 2023 decision that his suspension was lawful on the basis of his refusal to obey the principal\u2019s instruction in 2022. <\/p>\n

He also said the injunction deferring the panel should be granted because there was a fair issue to be tried and the balance of justice favoured granting it. <\/p>\n

Padraic Lyons, for the disciplinary appeals panel, opposed the injunction and said the panel, which has been delayed due to Burke\u2019s repeated legal challenges, should be allowed to do its work. <\/p>\n

If there was any legal defect in the decision, it would always be open to Burke to seek a remedy through the courts, he said. <\/p>\n

He also said the injunction application should be rejected because of the delay in bringing it as he had done just two days before the panel was scheduled to sit even though he was told the date on March 26th. <\/p>\n

Ruling against Burke, O\u2019Connell said he was satisfied there had not been any arguable case made that the disciplinary appeal hearing should be deferred pending the outcome of the Court of Appeal matter. <\/p>\n

He also awarded costs against Burke. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An oral hearing of jailed teacher Enoch Burke\u2019s appeal against his dismissal from Wilson\u2019s Hospital School will go…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":414401,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[10202,43693,73,61,60,43,59],"class_list":{"0":"post-414400","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-court-of-appeal","9":"tag-enoch-burke","10":"tag-high-court","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-westmeath"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414400","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=414400"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414400\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/414401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=414400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=414400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=414400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}