{"id":461238,"date":"2026-05-22T05:06:18","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T05:06:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/461238\/"},"modified":"2026-05-22T05:06:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T05:06:18","slug":"enoch-burke-officially-sacked-after-appeals-panel-upholds-schools-decision","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/461238\/","title":{"rendered":"Enoch Burke officially sacked after appeals panel upholds school\u2019s decision"},"content":{"rendered":"

Enoch Burke<\/a>\u2019s dismissal from Wilson\u2019s Hospital School has been confirmed by the school\u2019s board of management after a disciplinary appeals panel said a challenge by the jailed teacher had failed, the High Court has heard.<\/p>\n

Lawyers for the Co Westmeath school told Mr Justuce Brian Cregan on Thursday that the panel, convened to hear Mr Burke\u2019s appeal to his dismissal, this week said the teacher’s grounds for review of his dismissal were \u201cnot made out\u201d.<\/p>\n

The panel said its opinion was a product of Mr Burke\u2019s unwillingness to conduct himself in an orderly manner, his failure to comply with the panel’s direction, and unwillingness to participate in the panel’s process unless it was on his terms, the court heard.<\/p>\n

An attempted oral hearing of Enoch Burke\u2019s challenge in April was persistently disrupted by him and his family members, leading the panel to decide it was \u201cimpossible\u201d to conduct a fair hearing.<\/p>\n

Following the issuing of the panel’s opinion, Wilson\u2019s Hospital School wrote to Enoch Burke informing him of his dismissal with immediate effect, and that there was no basis for him to attend at the school, Rosemary Mallon, for the school, told the judge.<\/p>\n

Mr Burke, who appeared at Thursday\u2019s hearing via video link, said he did not accept the panel’s opinion, and asserted that he was still an employee of the school.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Two of his siblings, Jemima and Simeon, were escorted from the hearing after disrupting proceedings, with the latter forcibly removed from the courtroom by a garda member.<\/p>\n

Late challenge bid dismissed<\/p>\n

Separately, in a judgment on Thursday, the Court of Appeal dismissed Enoch Burke\u2019s bid to bring a late challenge to a High Court judgment that found he was validly suspended from his job at a Co Westmeath school.<\/p>\n

The school suspended \u2014 and later dismissed \u2014 Mr 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 Ms McShane had earlier directed teachers to address a student by a new name and with the pronouns \u201cthey\u201d and \u201cthem\u201d. Enoch Burke, an evangelical Christian, has maintained this request went against his religious beliefs.<\/p>\n

Mr Burke has repeatedly breached a court order to stay away from the school. He is currently incarcerated over this contempt of court, having spent close to 700 days in separate spells in jail.<\/p>\n

At Thursday\u2019s hearing, counsel for the school told the judge the board of management felt it was important to bring the panel’s opinion to the court\u2019s attention, and stated that the next steps were \u201cin the court\u2019s hands\u201d.<\/p>\n

Ms Mallon opened to the court the full opinion issued by the panel this week, and the school\u2019s subsequent letter to Mr Burke confirming his dismissal from his teaching post.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Enoch Burke] is now dismissed\u2026 He has no right, even on his own logic \u2014 which is disputed by the school \u2014 to attend at Wilson\u2019s,\u201d counsel submitted.<\/p>\n

Mr Burke made various submissions regarding the panel process, stating that he rejected the panel’s opinion, and asserting that he was still an employee of the school.<\/p>\n

He raised what he described as a conflict of interest arising from participation of panel chairperson Claire Callanan in the process.<\/p>\n

He claimed the conflict arose from Ms Callanan’s purported links to the Church of Ireland, including her sitting on a church disciplinary panel. He submitted that her husband, senior counsel Lyndon MacCann, was a legal adviser to the Church of Ireland, and held other senior roles in the church.<\/p>\n

Noting Wilson\u2019s Hospital School\u2019s Church of Ireland ethos, and submitting the church was \u201cintrinsically connected\u201d to the school, he claimed Ms Callanan could not be an objective and impartial decision maker in the appeal.<\/p>\n

When these issues were raised by Mr Burke in correspondence with the panel, the panel said it did not consider that a conflict of interest arose, the court heard.<\/p>\n

Enoch Burke also submitted that there was no substantive hearing of his appeal to the panel, and that no decision has been made on same.<\/p>\n

Opportunity to purge contempt<\/p>\n

Mr Justice Cregan said it was a matter for Enoch Burke what he wished to do following the conclusion of the panel process, stating that he had an entitlement to challenge the panel\u2019s opinion.<\/p>\n

The judge said he was not expressing a view on issues raised in Mr Burke’s submissions, including the conflict of interest allegation.<\/p>\n

The judge then gave Mr Burke an opportunity to purge his contempt of the court order banning him from Wilson\u2019s Hospital School. Mr Burke did not address the question, but continued to advance claims about the purported deficiencies in the panel process.<\/p>\n

The judge, noting Mr Burke\u2019s refusal to give an undertaking not to attend at the school, said the teacher remained in contempt of court, and should remain in prison.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, in dismissing Mr Burke\u2019s bid for a late appeal of the judgment finding he was validly suspended by the school, Judge Caroline Costello said he raised no ground of appeal that \u201cgoes to the justice\u201d of the decision sought to be appealed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Enoch Burke\u2019s dismissal from Wilson\u2019s Hospital School has been confirmed by the school\u2019s board of management after a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":461239,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[43693,42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-461238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-enoch-burke","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461238","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=461238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461238\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/461239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=461238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=461238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=461238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}