Enoch Burke transfer from Mountjoy to Castlerea was lawful, High Court rules

High Court Reporter

Enoch Burke’s transfer from Mountjoy Prison in Dublin to Castlerea Prison in Co Roscommon earlier this month was lawful, the High Court has ruled.

Judge Brian Cregan said the school teacher “has the keys to his own prison cell in Castlerea Prison, just as he has in Mountjoy Prison”.

Burke is in jail for breaching a court order banning him from Wilson’s Hospital School, Co Westmeath, where he previously taught German and history.

He has spent more than 600 days in prison in separate spells for his contempt of the court order. His imprisonment was most recently ordered in January.

The court previously heard that the Irish Prison Service (IPS) transferred Enoch Burke from Mountjoy to Castlerea in circumstances where, in light of his conduct during an escort to a recent court hearing, he was no longer deemed eligible for “enhanced” privileges under the prison authorities’ “incentivised regimes” policy.

This policy incentivises good behaviour among prisoners.

Previously, as a prisoner with “enhanced” status, the teacher had been housed in a single cell at Mountjoy’s West section, separate from the prison’s general population. Prison authorities’ stripping of Burke’s “enhanced” status necessitated him being housed elsewhere.

Burke challenged his transfer and contended that the transfer had “no legal basis”, arguing that the court had ordered his detention be at Mountjoy.

On Wednesday, Judge Cregan dismissed the Burke challenge.

The judge said that his order of January 19th directed that Enoch Burke be committed to Mountjoy Prison.

Once committed to prison, Burke is considered a “prisoner”, as defined by the Prisons Act 2007.

Under this act, a prisoner “committed to prison on remand or pending trial or otherwise may be lawfully confined in any prison”, the judge noted.

Therefore, he can be confined lawfully in any prison, the judge found, notwithstanding his jailing over his civil contempt of a High Court order, and the initial direction that he be committed to Mountjoy.

Further, the Act allows for Burke to be moved from one prison to another, the judge found.

The judge criticised Enoch Burke’s characterisation of the reasons for his imprisonment, rebutting Burke’s consistent position that his jailing arises from his views on transgender issues.

The judge noted that Burke, in this application, argued that court orders are “sacrosanct”, while simultaneously being in prison for refusing to obey a court order.

“No doubt it suits his political campaign against transgenderism to pretend to the outside world and to his followers that he has been imprisoned because of his religious beliefs, but nothing could be further from the truth,” the judge said.

“Mr Burke does not have to ‘bend the knee to the transgender ideology’ as he repeatedly puts it. The court order does not require that he do so. It simply requires him not to trespass on school grounds.

“Mr Burke has the keys to his own prison cell in Castlerea Prison, just as he has in Mountjoy Prison,” he added.

The judge made an order directing Enoch Burke to pay the legal costs incurred by the governors of Mountjoy and Castlerea.

Burke, who joined the proceedings via videolink, was muted when he repeatedly spoke over the judge as he was about to make the costs ruling.

Enoch Burke was banned from the school when the High Court ruled in May 2023 that Wilson’s Hospital School had validly suspended Burke from his teaching position.

Judge Alexander Owens ordered that Mr Burke be restrained from attending at the school premises.

Enoch Burke is currently seeking permission to bring a late appeal challenging that order.

The school suspended – and later dismissed – Burke over his conduct towards the then-principal Niamh McShane at a school religious event in June 2022.

The confrontation arose in circumstances where the principal had earlier requested teachers to address a student by a new name, and with the pronouns “they” and “them”.

Burke, an evangelical Christian, has maintained that this request went against his religious beliefs.