Enoch Burke claims he has been imprisoned because of his religious beliefs. Wilson's Hospital, a secondary school in Ireland, dismissed the teacher for refusing to address transgender pupils with their newly adopted gender-neutral pronouns. Since then he has been waging a legal battle with the school and the authorities and says he is being persecuted.

Irish school teacher Enoch Burke has been arrested and brought to Mountjoy Prison on foot of an order issued by the High Court last week, which directed his imprisonment for contempt of court. The school teacher has already spent more than 500 days in prison for contempt on three occasions since September 2022.

During that hearing in Dublin, Mr. Justice Cregan said that Mr. Burke and members of his family had engaged in a „deliberate, sustained and concerted attack” on the authority of the civil courts and the rule of law.

Mr. Burke has been teaching at Wilson’s Hospital School, from which he was previously dismissed for gross misconduct, since it reopened after the summer holidays.

The teacher has long been fighting a legal battle for having defied a court order requiring him to stay away from his former workplace after he refused to use the preferred pronouns of a transgender pupil.

Mr. Burke was suspended from the school in August 2022 after becoming involved in a public dispute with the principal over how he should respond to a transgender pupil. The school sought a court order to keep him off the premises during the suspension, and he was ultimately dismissed for gross misconduct. Mr. Burke challenged both his suspension and his dismissal, and continued turning up at the school despite the fact that every breach of the court order resulted in a substantial daily fine. Members of his family repeatedly took part in protests in front of, and on the grounds of, Irish courts, arguing that Mr. Burke was being persecuted because of his religious convictions.

Mr. Burke was eventually dismissed for “serious misconduct” for refusing to follow the school’s instruction to address a transgender pupil as “they”, and also for “serious misconduct committed during school worship (and other events) and the manner of his protest against transgenderism”.

Mr. Burke, who comes from an evangelical Christian family, claims he is being imprisoned because of his religious beliefs, while his former employers say he is in prison because he breached court orders and continued to trespass on private property.

Enoch “Has a Right to His Religious Beliefs”

Police visited the man’s home on several occasions, footage of which was recorded by his father. In one of the videos Sean Burke described the presence of the authorities as “shameful”, and stated that “Enoch has a right to his religious beliefs”.

The Burke family challenged the Education Authority in Northern Ireland over guidance on transgender issues.

Martina and Josiah Burke attempted to speak with the president of the Education Authority about their concerns regarding a document that “promotes gender ideology”.

Members of the evangelical Christian family confronted Mervyn Storey, the head of the Education Authority, in a County Antrim church over questions of gender identity.

In a video posted on his social media page, Enoch Burke accused the head of the organisation of “promoting transgender ideology” and “entrenching transgenderism in Northern Ireland” through the Authority’s guidance document.

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 Burke refused to comply with Principal Niamh McShane’s demand that he use the “they” pronoun for a male student, a demand… pic.twitter.com/Qd0aRWRY9D

— Enoch Burke (@EnochBurke) November 25, 2025

Debate Continues Over Whether a Transgender Person’s Biological Sex or Chosen Gender Should Be Regarded as Decisive

The first detailed guidance for Northern Irish schools on supporting transgender pupils was published by the EA in 2019. According to the definition in the guidance, transgender people’s “gender identity differs from the sex (assigned) at birth”.

Earlier this year, however, judges of the UK Supreme Court unanimously ruled that, under equality law, a woman’s status is determined by her biological sex. The Northern Ireland Equality Commission announced that it would seek clarification from the Supreme Court regarding “uncertainties” about applying the law. Education Minister Paul Givan asked officials to ensure that his department complies with the Supreme Court’s ruling.