IN THE WAKE of Enoch Burke’s latest arrest, an old and long-debunked claim suggested that his trouble with the law is due to a refusal to “endorse transgender ideology” or to refer to a trans student by their preferred pronouns.

Enoch Burke was brought to Mountjoy prison early this week after being ordered to jail last Tuesday.

In the days before his arrest, gardaí seeking to execute a High Court order to have Burke jailed were unable to locate him after calling to his home.

Burke has been jailed for contempt of court multiple times for breaching an injunction that requires him to stay away from Wilson’s school in Westmeath, following his dismissal for gross misconduct after he interrupted a religious service and confronted the school’s principal.

However, many online, including members of the Burke family, have continued to spread the false claim that Enoch was arrested and imprisoned due to his beliefs on transgender people and their rights.

Social media posts

“BREAKING: Teacher Enoch Burke has been arrested, forced into a Garda car and taken to Mountjoy Prison after he refused to endorse transgender ideology”, Enoch’s brother Josiah wrote on social media posts on 25 November that also featured a video showing Enoch’s arrest.

This is false; there is no crime of refusing to endorse transgender ideology. Nor was Burke punished, either by the law or by the school that once employed him, for not endorsing an ideology or even for refusing to use a student’s preferred pronoun.

Nevertheless, Josiah’s post with the false claim has been viewed more than 325,000 times on Facebook, 397,000 times on X, and 311,900 times on TikTok.

Similar claims have also spread widely overseas.

“Irish teacher jailed for ‘grotesque behaviour’,” begins a post by The Standing For Freedom Center. “His crime? Refusing to use a student’s preferred pronouns”.

The Standing For Freedom Centre is part of Liberty University in Virginia. That 21 November post was shared more than 550 times.

“Police hunt down teacher accused of using “wrong” pronouns” is how the story was described by a US-based podcast, Louder with Crowder.

“Irish teacher Enoch Burke has been dragged off to prison again, his ‘crime’? Refusing to abide by gender bending ideology,” British far-right agitator Tommy Robinson wrote on X on 25 November, in a post seen more than 1.1 million times.

Posts in other languages, such as Spanish, French and Polish, which attributed Burke’s trouble to not addressing a student by the pronoun “they”, also were viewed tens of thousands of times on Facebook.

These claims, that either the school or the law punished Burke for his beliefs, or for failing to call a child by their preferred pronoun, are false.

They have been repeatedly debunked.

Instigating incidents

In 2022, Wilson’s Hospital School in Co Westmeath sought an injunction after Burke interrupted a church service held to mark the school’s 260th anniversary.

During that incident, Burke – who taught at the school – is alleged to have followed the principal around and to have loudly questioned her about a request she made for teachers to address a transgender student by their preferred pronouns.

The school initiated a disciplinary process against Burke over the incident, resulting in him being placed on paid administrative leave pending the outcome of the process.

However, when Burke continued to show up at the school, Wilson’s asked for a court order because its board claimed this was not abiding by the terms of his suspension and that he was disrupting the schools and its students.

Burke continued to turn up at Wilson’s, prompting the school to ask the courts to take further action; he was finally jailed for contempt of court in September 2022 when he turned up at the school for breaking yet another injunction.

At the time, a judge ordered that rather than going to prison where he could derive publicity for his cause, Burke should pay a €700 fine every time he trespassed on the grounds of his employer.

When he continued to show up at the school in the spring, the fines were increased to €1,400, then to €2,000, for every occasion he appeared at Wilson’s.

Burke refused to pay the fines, requiring an application by the government to have his bank account emptied and his salary (which he is still being paid during his suspension) redirected as a way of forcing him to do so.

He still owes the State more than €225,000 in fines, an updated figure that was provided to the High Court earlier this year but which is now far higher because of the number of times Burke has appeared at Wilson’s in the intervening period.

The courts repeatedly made it clear that Burke can purge his contempt at any time by simply agreeing to stay away from the school.

In other words, Burke could have chosen to end his legal troubles without having to accept transgender students or refer to anyone by their chosen pronouns.

Burke has been arrested and released from prison multiple times, despite refusing to purge his contempt. Each time he was released, he has repeatedly breached the standing injunction, including an allegation that he entered the school building to attend a staff meeting.

The teacher was, again, released from prison in December last year after spending almost 500 days in jail without purging his contempt.

In recent week, Burke has been posting videos that have shown him arguing with security personnel that were hired in response to his repeated trespassing at the school, and which were blocking his entry.

Court orders

The former teacher maintains he is being persecuted for his religious opposition to a requirement to address a transgender pupil by their preferred pronouns, a claim that was strongly rejected by Judge Cregan in his judgment on Tuesday.

Cregan said the court order requiring him to stay away from Wilson’s was not about Burke’s beliefs.

He said the former teacher was “perfectly entitled to have and to articulate” his views about transgender people, but that he had been imprisoned and fined because he had breached the court’s order to stay away from the school.

He said Burke had engaged in a “mendacious campaign full of misinformation and disinformation” by claiming that he had been jailed because of his opposition to transgender people.

“That is completely false. He has been jailed because he has breached court orders directing him not to trespass on school property,” Cregan said.

The judge also said it was a “blatant” lie from Burke to claim that he has a right to turn up to Wilson’s, and said the former teacher “has no more right to be on the school grounds than he has to rob money from a bank”.

With reporting from Stephen McDermott

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