Burke arrives at school again despite €700 daily fine

TEACHER Enoch Burke again arrived at Wilson’s Hospital School yesterday despite being warned that he will be fined €700 a day each time he does so by the High Court.

Mr Burke arrived at the school near Multyfarnham in Co. Westmeath at around 8.45am yesterday.

Judge Brian O’Moore had given him until 2pm last Friday to attend court and promise to abide by the order made last September – that he stay away from the school. Judge O’Moore said last Thursday he hoped the imposition of a fine, totalling almost €5,000 a week, would end his ‘utterly pointless’ attendance at his former school ‘which does not want him on its property’.

He said: ‘He has unapologetically and repeatedly breached a court order, disrupting the operation of a school which he professes to serve.’

The judge said the fine could be increased if Mr Burke, right, does not comply with the order, and listed the matter to return before him on February 10. Speaking to reporters last week, Mr Burke, a history and German teacher, said: ‘I don’t believe I should pay a fine to practise my religious beliefs. I don’t believe I should pay it. I’m putting it in the nicest possible way.’

‘I have not done anything illegal. I’ve not broken any rules.’

The row began last year when Mr Burke refused to use different pronouns for a student and then loudly remonstrated with the school principal during an event to celebrate the school’s 260th anniversary.

Mr Burke spent three months in prison over his refusal to abide by court orders that he stay away from the school. He was released from Mountjoy Prison on December 21.