Teacher Who Refused to Call a Boy a Girl Will Remain in Jail for Christmas, Judge Rules
A teacher who refused to call a boy a girl will remain in prison over Christmas after he was jailed last month for contempt of court, a judge has ordered. The Mail has more.
Enoch Burke has been detained in Mountjoy Prison since late November for breaches of a court order directing him not to trespass at Wilson’s Hospital School in Co Westmeath, where he worked as a teacher.
He has been engaged in a legal dispute with the board of the school stemming from a request in 2022 from the then-principal that a student be addressed by a new name and pronoun.
Since then, Burke has been found to have repeatedly trespassed on school property in breach of court orders.
He was brought before the High Court in Dublin on Wednesday for a hearing on several matters relating to the dispute.
At the outset of the hearing, Mr Justice Brian Cregan warned Burke, who was accompanied by his father and one of his brothers, that if there was any interruption from any member of his family, he was going to ask them all to leave the court room as he was “not going to tolerate any further interruption”.
It came after gardai were directed to remove members of the Burke family from the court during previous sittings.
Mr Justice Cregan also told Burke, who was representing himself, that he would be immediately returned to Mountjoy Prison if he strayed beyond the normal conduct of the court and that he could continue attending remotely.
The judge gave Burke an opportunity to purge his contempt and give an undertaking not to trespass on the grounds of the school.
However, he told Mr Justice Cregan that it was “very important” that his position was clear and that he did not accept that he was in contempt of court.
Burke contends that he is in prison for his religious beliefs relating to transgenderism.
He said he had a “clear conscience” and that he respected the “laws of the land”.
The judge told Burke this was “nonsense”, adding that the court “does not engage in ‘Alice in Wonderland’ language”.
He said Burke had been in contempt for years and “no amount of you wishing it away” would change that, telling him that he was in breach of a valid court order that had not been appealed.
Mr Justice Cregan said Burke had a constitutional right to his religion and religious beliefs, but he had been dismissed for gross misconduct.
He said the “irony of the situation” was that if he had remained outside of the school gates, he would not have been in prison for a single day.
Burke maintained that the reason for his suspension was his refusal to comply with the principal’s instruction.
The judge said there was “no doubt” that that was where the dispute started, but the contempt was an entirely separate issue relating to the order not to trespass.
Burke said the school should never have received that order, but Mr Cregan said he had not appealed it.
The former teacher said three-and-a-half years of time had been wasted along with taxpayers’ money.
Worth reading in full.
Andrew Doyle in UnHerd defends Enoch Burke and his protest, calling him an “imperfect martyr” for free speech.
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Today’s Daily Telegraph:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/12/03/girl-guides-expelled-me-for-raising-trans-policy-concerns/
In 2017 the Girl Guides introduced a new policy that allowed boys and men who identified as female to share accommodation, showers and toilets with girls on trips away. GG leader Katie Alcock shared her concerns in a Facebook group with 11 other people. Someone secretly reported her to the leadership, whereupon Girlguiding paid a professional employment investigator to compile a file on her. In due course she was expelled for “publicly bringing the organisation into disrepute”.
That’s the topsy-turvy world we live in.
This is the organization which advised the Guides on their trans policy. Seriously, have a gander at some of these individuals. Good on Katie Alcock, though. Evidently, the woke ideology has women who oppose it ( e.g, J.K Rowling, Posie Parker ) and men who support it ( e.g, Owen Jones, the men at JLR ), and many more besides, both famous and non-famous. Imagine my surprise. 😮 An indisputable fact that seems to be incredibly difficult to accept for many on here.
https://genderedintelligence.co.uk/meet-the-team
Good grief! A roll-call of utter weirdos. And the Girl Guides actually took advice from these freaks?
Yep, according to the Google AI bot: ”In the past, Girlguiding developed its trans policy with input from organizations including Gendered Intelligence and Stonewall.” Did you see all those they/them pronouns and cross-dressing men? What a motley crew.
A fine body of they/them! Funny old world in both senses.
Perhaps I have missed it but I have never heard of a woman/girl who pretends to be a man/boy demanding to use the men’s showers or toilets or be sent to a man’s prison. I wonder why this is?
Or to take part in mens sports.
Yes, and luckily the Girl Guides have had a change of heart!
Trans girls banned from joining Girlguiding – BBC News
Girlguiding bans trans girls from joining Rainbows, Brownies, Guides and Rangers – Yahoo News UK
They were forced to change. There is no change of heart. Unfortunately.
I am a guide guider and I protested. Why would you do this to an all girls organisation? Where is the girl power they are always talking about?
I would never allow a boy to share facilities with girls.
However it was never an issue in my company. I expect there are very few trans girls in girlguiding .
It’s the trans adults which concern me more…..
Ps the WI doesn’t worry me because they are adults
Well done to you for protesting, because after decades of sending people on “Safeguarding Courses” to protect women and children from sexual attacks in various companies, schools, charities, and even churches, it defies belief that they would then officially destroy all those Safeguarding Efforts by allowing men and boys into the private places meant to Safeguard women and girls!!!
It’s things like this that prove the Satanic Globalists are actually certifiable, openly encouraging mass rape, creating a Hell on Earth.
This DEI policy has caused more divisions in society than anything I have witnessed in my lifetime. These so called progressives are certainly progressing us to anarchy!
That’s the idea destroy our world and build their dystopian one.
And Lammy wonders why the Courts are backlogged. Isn’t it odd though that last Summer when the riots occured the courts could suddenly cope with all the people who said hurty words and jailed them, meanwhile the Rapists, etc are we are being told taking years to come to Court. Does anyone smell the Rat?
Stinkiest rat I have ever smelt.
A Pied Piper’s-worth of rats in fact!
It was more sinister than that. People charged with “shouty words” were told that they faced being remanded in custody indefinitely, until court time could be found to process them. On this basis, they were encouraged to plead guilty because it was the only way they could expect to get back to the jobs and families, seemingly unaware that the CPS was was going to push for substantial custodial sentences anyway. In many cases their sentences were far longer than those given to the groomers/rapists.
https://youtu.be/SEl7P7CBXDc?si=rFj3yaNuFRcxSpO9
I had always considered Eire to be more traditional and less ready to emulate Britain. How things have changed. The Establishment now seems more corrupted and engaged in winning a race to the bottom with Britain
Because they’re still in the EU I believe.
And Sinn Fein dominate – they are Marxist, support Palestine uncritically and want open borders.
Well done for pointing out those awkward facts, because I remember news reports years ago saying that the IRA had actually been TRAINING MUSLIM TERRORISTS in secret camps in the wilds of Ireland FOR YEARS, and maybe still do!
This is unsurprising, the Irish supported the man in Germany with the funny moustache last century. He in turn admired the Grand Mufti and met him to discuss extending his “eradication” plans to the Middle East. The Irish are a perfect fit for this kind of thing, but I think reality may be dawning on then for the first time ever.
You know your history, the kind which is generally not taught in schools, especially things like the Catholic Irish declaring neutrality and welcoming Nazi submarines into Southern Irish harbours, giving them the perfect base from which to attack the Atlantic Convoys bringing food and supplies to Britain during WW2, and even the Devon Slapton Sands disaster of Exercise Tiger before D-Day.
And the Grand Mufti you rightly called out also sent Muslim troops to fight alongside Hitler AGAINST THE ALLIES.
I hope you’re right about “reality dawning on the Irish”, so they stop hating the English and join the West against the Foe already within the Gates.
I’ve actually lost sympathy for Burke now because it seems he’s just being bloody-minded and it’s beyond ridiculous. He’s behaving like an irrational man who’s become obsessed, chucking his career prospects down the toilet in the process. What is he hoping to achieve by deliberately entering the school premises, both knowing that he’ll be in contempt of court and thrown in jail again, but also knowing he can’t teach? So what is the purpose of his repeated visits? Is jail that cushy that he doesn’t mind being locked up time and again, sacrificing his freedom and time apart from family, and for what? He proved his point 3 years ago. His fate is within his own hands. Is he expecting to wear the judge down and he’ll one day allow him back to his teaching profession? Well, he’s worn my sympathy for him down and as much as I’m as anti trans bollocks as any other sane person I think Enoch is behaving like a stupid, stubborn idiot now. But if this is how he wants to spend his life let him get on with it. He probably could’ve got another job by now, maybe teaching outside of Ireland, but… Read more »
It is a point of principle. Just because he has broken a particular law doesn’t mean that law is good. All tyrannies have laws and this one, or punishment is unacceptable.
“People crushed by laws, have no hope but to evade power. If the laws are their enemies, they will be enemies to the law; and those who have most to hope and nothing to lose will always be dangerous.”
Edmund Burke
“If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable”
Louis Brandeis
Hear hear.
So, Mogwai, you choose to condemn the one person who dares challenge the insanity of official, unbridled wokery. Haven’t you heard of lawfare, the favourite weapon of a totalitarian state? Ireland is committing national suicide faster than the UK and has an establishment which fears the principles of Enoch Burke but accommodates the likes of Barbie Kardashian. The Burke family deserve our unqualified support whether or not we agree with their brand of evangelical Christianity.
He should have simply APPEALED against the court order!
The only thing Enoch Burke will accomplish with his approach is making himself more and more unemployable over time as well as continuing to serve more and more prison sentences, time which he will never get back. One man versus the entirety of the Irish judicial system?? There’s being principled and then there’s being wise enough to cut your losses and embark on a different journey or change of tack. I think, if he badly wants to remain in the teaching profession, he’s doing nothing more than shooting himself in the foot with his current approach, even if he did move outside of Ireland. Nobody will want him because his reputation will proceed him, as well as the fact he’s now got a criminal record, plus the more time you have off work the more you de-skill and the harder it is to get back into employment. He’s the architect of his own downfall and his admirable principles are evidently to his own detriment here. Does he have a wife and kids? I hope not, because principles don’t pay the bills. I agree it’s our duty to not submit to unjust laws, so if it were me, personally, I’d have… Read more »
Mr Burke is certainly a prickly character, but how I wish we had more like him.
I thought trespass was a civil matter, not a criminal one.
This judge is very stupid because the days of virtue signalling morons like him are coming to an end, all the sane people have had enough and their tolerance is at an end.
He will quite rightly pay a high price for this judgement.
Alice laughed. ‘There’s no use trying,’ she said: ‘one can’t believe impossible things.’‘I daresay you haven’t had much practice,’ said the Queen. ‘When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast. ( The White Queen, Lewis Carroll, aka the judge in this case)