A TEACHER who refused to call a boy a girl in a transgender school row will spend Christmas behind bars.
Enoch Burke was locked up last month for breaching a court order that blocked him from trespassing at Wilson’s Hospital School where he previously worked.
The teacher has been embroiled in a legal row with the school board since 2022 after he refused to call a transitioning pupil a girl.
Since then, he has repeatedly trespassed on school property in breach of court orders.
He was brought before the High Court in Dublin on Wednesday for a hearing on several matters relating to the dispute.
The judge gave Burke an opportunity to purge his contempt – take accountability – and give an undertaking not to trespass on the grounds of the school.
But the teacher did not accept he was in contempt of court and insisted he is in jail for religious beliefs relating to transgenderism.
Burke said he had a “clear conscience” and he respected the “laws of the land”.
Mr Justice Brian Cregan dismissed his pleas as “nonsense” and said the court “does not engage in Alice in Wonderland language”.
He told Burke he has been in contempt for years and while he has a constitutional right to his religion and beliefs, he had been dismissed for gross misconduct.
The judge said the “irony of the situation” was that if he had remained outside of the school gates he would not have been in prison for a single day.
Burke maintained the reason for his suspension was for his refusal to comply with the principal’s instruction.
Mr Justice Cregan said there was “no doubt” that while the dispute started there, the contempt was an entirely separate issue relating to the order not to trespass.
He told Burke he was the “only one wasting taxpayers’ money” and took it that he was not going to purge his contempt, adding that this was “regrettable”.
He said he would vacate a review date for December 18 and told Burke he would not be released until he purges his contempt.
The judge said: “You will now be treated like every other person engaged in contempt of court and breaches of contempt of court.”
He highlighted how these defendants do not get released at Christmas or Easter and said he did not know why Burke had been “granted that preferential treatment in the past”.
He said the court may previously have believed Burke would “see sense over the holidays” as he set a new review date for March 3.
In response, Burke said he “never asked for preferential treatment” or a “Christmas gift”, adding that he only asked for the court to be truthful and that God is not mocked.
Mr Justice Cregan said this was a “bit rich with all the lies you have told”.
Burke now intends to file an appeal to the Supreme Court to correct a Court of Appeal judgment relating to the dispute.
The legal battle erupted in 2022 when Burke publicly confronted the principal at a school event in June, attended by staff, parents and pupils, past and present.
The Co Westmeath school applied for an injunction that prevented him from attending or teaching at Wilson’s Hospital.
But he kept arriving and taking up his post “in an empty classroom,” the school’s lawyers said.
Burke was arrested and later jailed after Judge Michael Quinn ruled he he breached a court order to not attend the school.
At the time, the teacher told the court that referring to the child as “they” was “something I will not do” adding it would “violate my conscience”.
Speaking as he was jailed, Burke said: “It is insanity that I will be led from this courtroom to a place of incarceration, but I will not give up my Christian beliefs.”
He had earlier told the judge: “I am a teacher and I don’t want to go to prison. I want to be in my classroom today, that’s where I was this morning when I was arrested.
“I love my school, with its motto Res Non Verba, actions not words, but I am here today because I said I would not call a boy a girl.”