Enoch Burke returns to Westmeath school a day after being released from prison

Enoch Burke has appeared at the gates of Wilson’s Hospital School – the day after he was released from Mountjoy Prison.

On Wednesday, a High Court judge said he should be released to prepare for a case launched against an appeals body due to review his dismissal from the Westmeath school.

Speaking to journalists, supporters and protesters gathered outside the school on Thursday, Mr Burke said: “I’m coming here to do a day’s work, that’s what I’ve always done.

“I should never have been in prison in the first place, this is my work place, this is where I teach.”

In the High Court on Thursday morning Rosemary Mallon, the school’s barrister, said he had “passed the gates of the school”.

She said there were “quite a number of protesters” with placards and flags and some of them had also trespassed.

Ms Mallon said the school’s private security guard was in attendance and the Gardai had also “turned up”.

She asked for a hearing on Thursday afternoon, where the possibility of Mr Burke returning to prison will be discussed.

Mr Burke has been in jail since late November for breaches of a court order directing him not to trespass at Wilson’s Hospital School in Co Westmeath, where he worked as a teacher.

Last week, he sought a temporary injunction against a disciplinary appeals body tasked with reviewing his dismissal from the school.

Before the High Court on Wednesday, Mr Justice Brian Cregan said Mr Burke had raised “substantive” and “credible” issues in papers prepared against the Disciplinary Appeals Panel (DAP).

The judge said he was directing that Mr Burke be released from prison for “one reason and one reason only”, in the interest of the administration of justice and so that he has time to prepare for his case against the DAP.

The judge had said the decision was being made on the basis that he would not attend the school and he would be brought back to prison if he did.

Mr Burke rejected the reasons given by the judge for his release when he appeared before the court via videolink and as he walked out of Mountjoy Prison on Wednesday.

He repeated his comments again at the school gates on Thursday and in a tirade against the Irish judicial system and media he accused the “judges in this country” of “telling lies”.

He said his case was an “insult from beginning to end” to the “institutions of our State” and a “disgrace”.

He said he was brought to court because he “simply could not” address a pupil using the pronoun “they”, saying it was “anti Christian, but as well as that, it is nonsense”.