In Ireland - Four Gardai needed to arrest Enoch Burke

[TheSandgroper]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=f5sDGzcPBx8&pp=ygULRW5vY2ggYnVya2U%3D

All power to the man.

I cannot believe what Ijust saw. I had to look up the story.

What moral courage that family have.

Disgraceful use of police time.

Well done to the Gardaí for their quiet professionalism in the face of such nonsense from Mr Burke.

The idea that his son Enoch has an 'unblemished record' is ridiculous - Enoch Burke has been found to be in contempt of court orders time and time and time again - NOT due to his refusal to use a student's preferred pronouns/names, which I sympathise with him about, but due to the fact that he keeps turning up day after day at the school despite a court order for him to remain away until the disciplinary process of over.

His behaviour, and that of his family [parents + 10 children, all old enough to have learnt how to behave in places like courts of law] during court cases has been atrocious, including disrupting the procedure by shouting down the judge and having to be carried from the courtroom so the judge could continue speaking.
No wonder the Gardaí prudently sent four officers along - given how they behave in public in a court of law, who knows what could kick off at the Burke's own property. Yet another example of how the Burke's behaviour has tied up so much police and court time.

The repeated court cases are NOT about transgenderism, they are about his repeated breaches of court orders to stay away from the school. Enoch Burke has been given umpteen opportunities to purge his contempt of court, but he chooses to spend months in prison. It obviously suits his preferred persona..

The Burkes happen to disagree with trans ideology as many of us on here do; but placed alongside their 'we're above the law' publicity-seeking, that doesn't count for much.

Happy to stand corrected but from what I can gather he is an evangelical Christian who refused to refer to a child as a they/them, and got the sack.

Me thinks he would have better made his point by challenging this through the courts under the Irish/EU Equalities Act for having a belief that should be protected.

However he has gone down the civil disobedience route instead, and garnered publicity for this stand of against the State.

Not a hil i would die on but good for him.

It annoys me that my taxes are going to be paying his board and lodging yet again, but the State won't lock up men found guilty of assaulting women. He needs an ankle monitor and his and his family's (if he's still living in the parental home) property should be regarded as a deposit subject to forfeiture if he skips out.

I have sympathy with his initial position wrt being expected to prop up gender theory, none at all with his and his family's disrespect for the rule of law.

@DeanElderberry hiya, surely it is the Irish state at fault here, causing tax payers a cost by trying to force a member of the public to conform to an ideological belief?

is there ever an occasion when one can refuse to comply with a law?

Let’s go extreme here, how does totalitarianism ever get a hold? That would be very bad law.

But Bannedontherun that's not what the Irish state is doing. It is applying exactly the same law that the rest of us are subject to, i.e. not disrupting court cases by shouting the judge down, and not ignoring court orders.

Enoch Burke was not taken to court because he 'fails to conform to an ideological belief', he was taken to court because he refused to comply with a court order. The court order was not ordering him to conform to an ideological belief , it was a court order saying that he was banned from turning up at the school premises day after day after day....
He kept turning up day after day after day, which places him in contempt of court, not for his beliefs, but his failure to comply with a court order telling him NOT to keep turning up day after day after day.. And then his failure to purge his contempt, choosing instead to spend three months in prison, and then going back to turning up at the school day after day after day when released.

There is a roll-call of brave women like Allison Bailey, Maya Forstater and many others who have had grievances with their employers about transgender issues. They managed to make their points and with their cases without behaving outrageously in and out of court. They certainly didn't bring along their disruptive mammies and daddies and brothers and sisters to shout abuse at the judges.

Enoch Burke's obviously identifies as someone being pursued by The State for his ideological beliefs. The facts prove otherwise, it's more a case of The State being pursued by Enoch Burke looking for another photo-op.

Full marks to the Gardaí for doing their job professionally without taking the bait from Mr Burke Snr.

On face value, every single one of his family members including himself have made utter fools of themselves and also made themselves unemployable. Shouting and screeching, having to be carried out of court etc. ambushing people on camera, making complete nuisances of themselves. Even if they had a point to make, this is not the way to do it and get credit for it. The amount of tinfoil hat twats supporting them on X/Twitter is crazy, when in reality if you saw any of those mad yokes coming near your workplace you would think "oh here we bloody go"
Again - all power to anyone to follow their beliefs but Jesus Christ - would you ever give it a bloody rest

@MarieDeGournay don't be so naive, none of this would exist but for the insistence by the school that he conforms to an ideological belief or else loses his job.

Maybe have a google of the rest of the Burke family before you say "none of this would exist but for ... "

He has the choice how to react to his perfectly valid dispute with his employer, he chooses immature disruptive attention-seeking.

It would be harmless eejitry were he not using up so much police and court time by repeatedly refusing to comply with court orders which are NOT asking him to change his ideological beliefs, they are just telling him to stop turning up at the school day after day after day after day after...

He was right on the pronouns but wrong on every single thing he has done since, so according to the law has got what he deserves. He and his family are 'odd' to put it mildly. And he wasn't coming at the pronouns issue from the right stances just a really weird one. Sometimes your enemy's enemy is not your friend and this is one of those times.

I think Wilson's Hospital and Eugene Burke are pretty much equally to blame here, and that if the school and the state had ignored EB and let him carry out his one man protest through the winter he'd have found something else to do by now.

At the moment I think the law doesn't know what to do with them - there are good historical reasons for being very wary of the state locking people up because it disagrees with them, and this is problematic, however badly the Burkes en masse have behaved in this and all their other vexatious court cases.

For decades the Offences Against the State Act was used to lock people up on the sworn oath of a senior garda that they were members of an illegal organisation - usually the IRA or the INLA, though I presume if we had any members of loyalist gangs they were on the proscribed list too. There doesn't seem to be adequate law to deal with either people stirring up agitation on line, or with the Burke family, and I am not convinced that Helen McEntee's proposed hate legislation will help (and suspect a lot of doorstep criticism of that will be one factor in a November election).

A mess, but the gardai should stop dancing to either the Burke's or the school's tune.

@yesmen

That family are as bad as TRAs for making absolute [un]holy shows of themselves while steadfastly refusing to recognise other people exist & have rights.
(“Irish Examiner” of 14/02/23 gives a good picture of it.

I apologise for referring to Enoch as 'Eugene'. Not sure where that came from.

Anyone condoning Enoch Burke needs to do some seriously research on this family.

Awful, awful people and I’m sick of seeing them.

I have gender-critical views, but this isn’t as simple as “teacher cast out for not saying a boy has a vagina”.
Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

Thank you all for your comments! @MarieDeGournay and @NitroNine particularly for your contributions. I have read the Examiner commentary (gosh, I wish we had the Examiner here - I have long been a fan) and am happy to stand corrected on many of the points.

This is from Wikipedia - I've edited a few chunks out

In 2014, Isaac, Kezia, Ammi, and Enoch were all given lifetime bans from participating in student societies at the university they attended, [....] That year, [the] students' union held a referendum about implementing a strategy of boycott, divestment, and sanctions against the state of Israel.

The Burkes, who together occupied all four officer positions on the university's Christian Union Society, used society funds to print leaflets advocating for a "no" vote.[ ....] The university had previously received complaints from students surrounding the Burkes' distribution of leaflets which connected same-sex marriage to paedophilia and incest [.....] As a result of the investigation, on 10 November the four siblings were issued lifetime bans from participation in student societies

All that being the case, why, having chosen to employ a new graduate with that track record established and on public record, did the school then decide to go head-to-head with the same employee and expect the state to pick up the costs of the entirely predictable fallout?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burke_family_(Castlebar)#NUIG_religious_discrimination_challenge_(2014%E2%80%932021)

Enoch is at it again. Turned up at the school again, back in court again, back in prison again.. back in the headlines again, so job done✔

We all know he'll just turn up again at the school as soon as he's out, and arresting him isn't working, so maybe a different strategy is needed.

Make a feature of him! Give him all the attention he so desperately craves, in lorryloads! Make him a tourist attraction, a bit like the moving statues. Visit the school and take selfies with him. Local businesses could hire advertising space on the wall behind him. The school could bring him out a comfy chair and cups of tea. Passer-by could ask what he'd like from the local take-away as they were just heading that way themselves like. Knit him warm scarves and mittens in winter. At Christmas they could drape him in lights...

It's not really funny, but taking the piss out of the martyrdom performance might an attractive alternative to all the court and police time him and his family are intentionally and cynically consuming.

That would be very funny. It's clear that officialdom simply doesn't know what to do - the family act in ways so outside the norms that the law has no effective sanctions. Your strategy would probably be more effective and less expensive.

He was removed from the school and sacked because he publicly abused the Head at a school dinner/board meeting and made a disgrace of himself. His sacking had nothing to do with his stance on transgenderism but because of his unlawful behaviour in the school. He was then suspended and injuncted from the school premises, but he breaks that injunction constantly, and is thus in contempt of court.

I do understand that the underlying issue led to his sacking, but if he hadn't, in true Burke Clan fashion - gone rogue, I suspect some compromise would have been reached. However, the Burkes don't do compromise, since the cult of the Burkes won't allow it.

He is still being paid full teacher salary pending an Employment Appeal Tribunal hearing which is imminent.

So my reading of it is that is was his obnoxious behaviour towards his superiors/employer that led to this pass. Not his views on transgenderism as such.

I feel the school should be expected to take some responsibility since they chose to hire him when it was known that he was problematic. Did they put a premium on someone who could grind his pupils through to maximum points or what?

All that being the case, why, having chosen to employ a new graduate with that track record established and on public record, did the school then decide to go head-to-head with the same employee and expect the state to pick up the costs of the entirely predictable fallout?
Very true, Dean, but...

'Well Mr Burke, we have looked at your application and find you eminently qualified for the post you are seeking to fill. However <peers nervously over half-glasses> it has been brought to the school's attention that your family are - and I trust you will forgive me lapsing momentarily into the demotic, Mr Burke - are, well... a bunch of disruptive attention-seeking loo-laas, and therefore you probably are too, so on that basis, it is with deep regret, Mr Burke, that we cannot offer you this position..'

Gosh, imagine the court-cases!

He is still being paid full teacher salary pending an Employment Appeal Tribunal hearing which is imminent.
Good point, I had forgotten that, halava. It wouldn't be a matter for the courts at all, it would be an EAT matter, if it wasn't for the constant breaching of court orders.

It depends on the interview criteria, but a tick box for 'has the candidate been the subject a negative court finding after investigation for misconduct?' and a tick box for 'has the candidate made written public statements contrary to national law?' should have been enough to rule him out, even the that grim unsmiling visage didn't bump him down a few points on 'general impressions'.

As long as everyone they interviewed was put through the same hoops, there shouldn't have been a problem (but yes, I do know about mama Burke).

If schools don't take a little look at the legal history of people they're thinking of hiring, that - er - explains a lot, in view of what the government will be publishing soon.

Totes take your point, DeanElderberry, I was just on a roll..

I can see how the Burkes would lose public sympathy over homophobia, absolutely. Totally understandable.

It's now clear in England that there are new legal precedents and great legal teams winning cases of unfair dismissal etc at employment tribunals, with many of these currently ongoing. Tide turning etc with regards protected beliefs, Maya Forester etc. Only relatively recently though.

Just wondering what alternative routes there would have been for EB in Ireland currently? Are there any similar cases where people have successfully appealed so far? Would The Countess have supported him, for example? Or are the Burkes just considered beyond the pale because of their particular kind of moral compass? They look like a family backed into a very hard corner.

Also just wondering if this is more nuanced/ complex than it looks.
Are the Burkes considered to be bad for the gender critical cause because of their hard line?
Bit nervous to even post this, but am in the spirit of sincere enquiry.
My experience of Ireland is it is deeply sensible in many matters, but we're all in interesting times.