Enoch Burke, the Irish teacher who was sacked for refusing to call a ‘transitioning’ student by the pronoun “they,” has been jailed for the third time.
Burke was detained outside his former place of employment, Wilson’s Hospital School in County Westmeath, on Monday and driven to the Four Courts in Dublin.
The History and German language teacher then spent the night in Mountjoy Prison. He had already served more than 400 days imprisoned there for defying a High Court injunction banning him from the school’s grounds.
The judge, Justice Michael Quinn, jailed him for contempt of court on Monday after he refused to give a “yes” or “no” answer when asked if he intended to return to the school.
MailOnline reports that Burke on Monday insisted:
This court is simply denying me my religious beliefs, and my right to my religious beliefs. I am a Christian. I have Christian beliefs. My belief is male and female, God made them male and female.
Burke quoted passages from the Bible and said teachers were being “commanded to force transgenderism on students.” This “hellish ideology,” he added, results in children taking puberty blockers and being “scarred for life.”
I did not force my beliefs on anyone; that belief was forced on me. I was commanded to feed that poison to young people in my care.
Burke’s ordeal started in 2022, when the school’s headteacher, Niamh McShane, informed staff that a student was ‘transitioning’ and that they should refer to the student by a new name and the pronoun “they.”
Burke told the headteacher he “opposed transgenderism” due to his Evangelical Christian religious beliefs and refused to comply with the demand.
On August 22nd that year, the school placed Burke on administrative leave with full pay, pending disciplinary action, following a public altercation. However, he continued to show up daily at the school, insisting he was there to work. The school then obtained a restraining order against him, which he also defied, leading to his arrest and imprisonment the following month.
He spent 100 days in prison before being released in December that year. He was jailed for a second time in September 2023 before being released in June this year.
Burke is appealing his sacking from the school.