"I will never accept that my Christian beliefs can be set forward as 'gross misconduct'," Enoch Burke told the High Court via video link from Castlerea Prison on June 3, 2026. He will remain in custody for at least another three weeks after refusing to give an undertaking to stay away from his former workplace, Wilson's Hospital School in Co Westmeath. The refusal matters because the Department of Education stopped his salary on 28 May after the school confirmed his dismissal, and because Mr Burke has spent almost 700 days in custody since September 2022 for breaching court orders that bar him from the school. The High Court review followed a disciplinary appeals process that the school says concluded last month and a separate Court of Appeal ruling that rejected a late challenge to an earlier High Court decision.

"My suspension in 2022 was 'manifestly unlawful'," Mr Burke told Mr Justice Brian Cregan, as the judge repeatedly asked him to give a court undertaking not to trespass at Wilson's Hospital School.

Court offered a clear choice

Mr Justice Cregan told Mr Burke on three separate occasions that he would be released if he accepted the permanent injunction and formally agreed to stay away from the school. The judge said that, in the absence of such an undertaking, Mr Burke must remain in custody "for the time being" because he continued to regard himself as an employee and wouldn't agree to observe the injunction. The permanent injunction, imposed in May 2023, forbids Mr Burke from entering the school grounds. This High Court found at that time that the original suspension was lawful, and Mr Burke didn't appeal that decision within the prescribed time limit.

The hearing on June 3 addressed precisely whether Mr Burke would accept the injunction as a condition of release. He declined. He told the court he continued to dispute both the suspension and the Court of Appeal judgment that upheld it. That stance, the judge said, put him beyond the relief the court would provide without a clear undertaking to avoid the school.

Dismissal and the disciplinary appeals panels

The Department of Education stopped salary payments on 28 May after the school board of management confirmed Mr Burke's dismissal for gross misconduct. Wilson's Hospital School had convened three separate Disciplinary Appeals Panels to review the dismissal. The last panel, held in April 2026, didn't complete its work because the panel reported that Mr Burke and members of his family were disruptive and prevented it from carrying out its functions. That panel nonetheless issued a written opinion finding Mr Burke had not made out grounds for review, and the board then confirmed the dismissal.

Mr Burke used the June 3 hearing to renew complaints about the fairness of those appeal procedures. He alleged a "serious conflict of interest" involving the DAP chair, solicitor Claire Callanan, and pointed out that her husband, Senior Counsel Lyndon McCann, held senior roles in the Church of Ireland.

Mastheads

Mr Justice Cregan rejected attempts to re-litigate the earlier findings and emphasised that the test for release was straightforward: a clear undertaking not to trespass at the school.

The dispute between Mr Burke and the school dates back to mid-2022. He was suspended in late August 2022 after he objected to a request by the then-principal that a pupil be addressed by a new name and with the pronouns "they" and "them". The initial confrontation began after Mr Burke raised the matter publicly at the end of a school anniversary church service in June 2022 and then pursued it with the principal at a dinner afterwards.

Despite the injunction, Mr Burke has repeatedly attended the school grounds, each breach triggering contempt proceedings and custodial sentences. Those breaches have produced multiple spells in custody that add up to almost 700 days in prison since September 2022. The June 3 hearing therefore formed part of an ongoing process of enforcement of the court orders that bar him from the campus.

There was also a separate legal thread. The High Court review followed the conclusion last month of the school's internal appeals process and a Court of Appeal ruling that rejected a late challenge to the earlier High Court decision. That combination of internal disciplinary findings and appellate rejection left the Department of Education with the basis it needed to cease salary payments, the department having done so on 28 May.

The practical consequence of Mr Burke's stance is stark. The judge presented him repeatedly with a single path to freedom: accept the injunction in the form the court required and give a clear undertaking.

Mr Burke refused, insisting he remained an employee and that the suspension and subsequent legal rulings were wrong. The court's response was equally plain: absent that undertaking, he must stay in custody for the time being.

The exchanges in court underlined how this case has positioned a private school disciplinary dispute at the centre of repeated enforcement hearings. The combination of a permanent court injunction, multiple breaches, disciplinary panels that found no basis for review and an explicit departmental decision to stop salary payments has left Mr Burke in a long custodial cycle that the judge declined to cut without a formal promise to stay away from the school.

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Mr Burke will remain in prison for at least another three weeks unless he gives the court the undertaking to stay away from Wilson's Hospital School that Mr Justice Brian Cregan repeatedly sought on June 3. Originally reported by RTÉ.

This article was created with AI assistance.