The Burkes are back in town.
In the Four Courts again having been marched out of the place last Friday with the help of God and a few policemen.
No amount of assisted exits will deter them from having their day in court.
Would it be any different this time?
READ MORE
Just in case, there was an enhanced garda presence in the vicinity for Wednesday’s three-parter hearing involving Martina Burke, her daughter Ammi and her jailed son Enoch (601 days and counting).
He participated via video-link from Mountjoy Prison.
The opening act was to deal with the costs of Wilson’s Hospital School’s application to have Enoch Burke jailed for contempt.
The second act was about the incarcerated teacher’s application to have the chair of the disciplinary appeals panel considering his dismissal from the school referred to the Director of Public Prosecution for perjury.
And the final act – the main draw – featured Mammy and Ammi. Up before the judge for contempt after last week’s shenanigans.
Four uniformed gardaí were stationed in the car park at the door nearest the public entrance, three stood in the Round Hall outside court number two and at least three more kept a watchful eye inside.
The small public gallery filled up quickly, journalists turned out in force and sketch artist Mike O’Donnell was in situ, pencils primed.
But when Judge Brian Cregan opened up shortly after half 10 in the morning there was no sign of Mammy and Ammi.
Enoch was there. He was in court in person on Friday for the ritual hauling out by the guards. On Wednesday he had to make do with an incorporeal appearance, beaming in from what looked like a small cubicle somewhere in the Joy.
His family rushed in just in time to hear him addressing the court from two screens on either side of the bench. There was relief in the public gallery when they showed up.
Mammi, Ammi, her sister Kezia, brothers Isaac and Josiah and dad Sean watched intently as Enoch made his case.
The judge barely got a word in edgeways.
As Enoch rattled on, his brother Isaac took copious notes in very neat handwriting.
“I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t be in prison today,” protested Enoch, saying he was being “massacred” for his belief and in jail for refusing “to call a young boy ‘they’”.
The prisoner was reminded more than once that he is in jail for trespassing and not for his views on transgenderism.
Brian Creegan boldly went where many judges have gone before him. He tried to reason with Martina Burke
The judge left the matter of costs to a legal costs adjudicator before taking a quick break from the Burkes to deal with the rest of his 11am list.
First up was a bearded man in jeans and a jumper.
“Good morning” said Cregan. “Are you Mr Burke?”
“Yes, judge” sez he.
Dear God. Another one?
Mercifully, the man was involved in a case to do with a farming dispute in Galway.
He was no relation and we hadn’t entered the twilight zone just yet.
In part two, word from the Mountjoy end was that Enoch had “unassailable evidence that we do have a case of perjury here”.
Cregan reserved his decision.
And so to the final act. What had Mammy and Ammi to say about the last Friday’s carry-on?
Martina Burke moved to the barristers’ table at the front and held forth on the injustices being visited upon her “upright, genuine, sincere, righteous, godly, excellent teacher” son.
Then she got stuck into Cregan for “covering it up” and not doing his duty to uphold the Constitution.
“Yes!” said Isaac, still furiously taking notes. “Amen!”
Martina took to waving around a copy of the Constitution, occasionally banging it on the table for effect.
She roared on, Ammi and Isaac at her shoulder whispering advice, young Josiah brooding and silent behind them and Kezia sitting in the body of the court beside her father Sean, who had his arms folded and eyes closed while his wife shouted that their son is in jail because his religious beliefs “go against the promotion of sodomy and gender ideology”.
Isaac smiled when his mother told the judge that he too would have to stand before “God Almighty ... the judge of all this Earth”.
Brian Cregan boldly went where many judges have gone before him. He tried to reason with Martina Burke.
“You know perfectly well he’s in prison because he’s trespassing at the school,” he said of her son. While supporting his stand on gender ideology, can she not use whatever influence she has to stop him trespassing?
If he gives the word “he’ll be out of jail tomorrow”.
Fair play to him for trying.
Solicitor Ammi rose to deliver more of the same, her eloquence earning a fevered round of applause from her mother early on.
Passions flared with Ammi doing the talking, Mammy interrupting and waving the Constitution, Isaac butting in with indignant observations and noises off over the ether from Enoch.
Cregan called it a day. Everyone is back next week.
As the court rose, young Josiah shouted “You won’t win. You won’t win!”
The family exited under their own steam.
Mammy had the last word.
“You won’t win, judge.”
