MARTINA AND AMMI Burke have been arrested at Castlerea Prison this afternoon.

It comes four weeks after High Court judge Brian Cregan found the pair in contempt of court and ordered them to prison for two weeks each.

The judge made the finding after the pair were physically removed from his courtroom during proceedings involving Enoch Burke and Wilson’s Hospital School.

Martina and Ammi Burke were arrested by gardaí this afternoon at the Co Roscommon prison, where Enoch Burke is separately being held for contempt of court.

A garda spokesperson said they will be brought to Mountjoy Women’s Prison on foot of the High Court’s order of committal.

Gardaí had made attempts to arrest the pair at their place of residence in Castlebar in recent weeks, but could not locate them to detain them until now.

The contempt findings relate to proceedings on Friday 20 February, in a case brought by Enoch Burke against members of the Disciplinary Appeals Panel (DAP) that was deciding whether he was unfairly dismissed by Wilson’s Hospital School.

When Rosemary Mallon, counsel for the board of management of Wilson’s Hospital School, read a letter in which O’Brien had given an undertaking not to appear on a future iteration of the DAP, Enoch, Martina and Ammi Burke began interrupting.

Ammi and Martina claimed that “the panel is still in existence” and that “Geraldine O’Brien is still on the panel” and had not resigned.

Judge Cregan said in his ruling earlier this month that he found this behaviour “astonishing” and that their shouting was “so loud and vociferous that I simply could not be heard” when directing the court to rise.

He said that even when he left the court after ordering Martina and Ammi Burke be attached to the case for contempt of court charges, he could continue to hear “continuous shouting and roaring as they were removed”.

The judge said the interruptions amounted to a “paradigmatic case of contempt of court”.

He said it was clear that members of the Burke family, including Enoch, Ammi and Martina, believed “that they are above the law and that the law does not apply to them”.

“There comes a time when the court must then move to consider contempt of court proceedings against them,” he said.

“That time is long overdue.”