{"id":416042,"date":"2026-04-25T00:15:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-25T00:15:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/416042\/"},"modified":"2026-04-25T00:15:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-25T00:15:13","slug":"enoch-burke-removed-from-appeal-hearing-say-family","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/416042\/","title":{"rendered":"Enoch Burke removed from appeal hearing, say family"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n             <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.irishexaminer.com\/maintopics\/person-enoch-burke_topic-5157989.html\">Enoch Burke<\/a> has been removed from an appeal hearing over his dismissal from Wilson\u2019s Hospital school, according to his family.<\/p>\n<p>His family said the hearing on Friday had concluded and he was returned to Castlerea Prison.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Mr Burke had <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.irishexaminer.com\/news\/courtandcrime\/arid-41832989.html\">failed in a legal bid to prevent the hearing from happening on Thursday evening<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">The disciplinary appeals panel (DAP) oral hearing commenced on Friday morning to consider matters relating to his dismissal from Wilson\u2019s Hospital school.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">The former history and German teacher has been engaged in a legal dispute with the Westmeath school since 2022.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">He was suspended following incidents arising from a request from the school\u2019s then principal to address a student by a new name and pronoun, and later dismissed from his position.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Mr Burke has repeatedly argued the direction was unconstitutional and went against his right to express his religious beliefs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">He has spent more than 650 days in prison after he was found to have violated court orders instructing him not to trespass at the school.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">A video posted on his X account appeared to show Mr Burke being escorted from the hearing by prison officers on Friday.<\/p>\n<p> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" title=\"\" \/> <\/p>\n<p class=\"\">In the same video, his mother Martina and brother Isaac said that he had objected to the presence of legal representatives for the school\u2019s board of management at the meeting.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">They contended this was a breach of the processes of the appeal panel, which are supposed to be \u201cinformal\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">A spokesperson for the family said the DAP hearing opened at approximately 10.15am at the Department of Education buildings in Athlone.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">They said that a previously constituted DAP refused to allow lawyers to be present in the hearing room during a meeting in December, stating it was not its practice to allow legal representation at oral hearings.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">The family said the DAP adjourned multiple times to consider the matter, but ultimately did not direct the legal representatives to leave the hearing.<\/p>\n<p> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/2.83730847.jpg\" title=\"Enoch Burke court case\" \/> Isaac Burke (Brian Lawless\/PA)<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">In a statement, the family said Mr Burke continued to request fair procedures but was removed by prison officers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">They said this was done under the direction of the chair of the DAP.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Other members of the family said they went to the hearing room but garda\u00ed were asked to remove them.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">They said the hearing ended by 1.30pm and Mr Burke was returned to Castlerea Prison.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">On Wednesday, the Court of Appeal heard arguments from Mr Burke as he sought to overturn a May 2023 High Court ruling by Mr Justice Alexander Owens which found his suspension from the school was lawful.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Enoch Burke has been removed from an appeal hearing over his dismissal from Wilson\u2019s Hospital school, according to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":416043,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43693,61,60,43],"class_list":["post-416042","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-enoch-burke","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416042","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=416042"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416042\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/416043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=416042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=416042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=416042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}