It is Wednesday afternoon in Castlebar and the Burkes are nowhere to be found. The family’s pop-up shop in Market Square is closed. A Bible sits in the window, set within a colourful display of children’s books and games. It has been left open on a page about The Parable of the Dishonest Steward.
Next door in the Phone Giant shop, Waseem Hassam, a resident of Castlebar for eight years, says he knows nothing about the family’s latest court proceedings.
“I think the Burkes shop has been here for maybe three years. There was a fish shop beforehand. They seem very nice,” Hassam says.
“It is mostly the father and a daughter who work there. Sometimes they come to me if they have a problem with their phones and another time he bought a phone from me.”
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Earlier on Wednesday, High Court judge Brian Cregan ordered jailed teacher Enoch Burke’s mother Martina and sister Ammi to be arrested and imprisoned for two weeks over their “disgraceful” contempt of court. Neither woman was in court on Wednesday. Nor were they immediately visible in their home town.
Drive a few kilometres out the Ballinrobe road from Castlebar any evening and you will pass a busy car park at the site of the family’s Christian school. It is attached to the family home, where Martina and Sean Burke’s 10 children, now adults, were raised and homeschooled.
With Leaving Cert mocks just over, this large Dutch barn-like building attracts numerous students seeking to improve their grades through grinds offered by the Burke family. That is but one part of its curriculum, whose ethos is firmly based on “a godly education” that “provides a foundation for life” through the teaching of a broad range of subjects.
The Burke Christian School website asks: “Do we want our children to become educated atheists, embracing the values of an education system from which God is excluded?”
According to Michael Kilcoyne, an Independent councillor and local funeral director, “the Burkes are seen by many as the best educators in the county, teaching and giving grinds to the children of other high-achieving families”. He says: “I’ve heard that they have given classes to young people whose families couldn’t afford grinds too. Many people here in the county have a lot of time for the Burkes but they want to keep their heads down about the court cases.”
Kilcoyne’s observation is borne out by a walk around Castlebar. The Irish Times discovers that everyone has a comment about the Burkes, or a story to tell, but hardly anyone is willing to go on the record. Part of that is informed by the Burkes’ history of public protests.
Shaun Lavelle, co-chair of Mayo Pride and a member of the LGBT+ community, says: “It’s very difficult with the Burkes. They wave their banners about the number of days Enoch has been in jail, shout over a microphone but won’t engage with people.
“I get very annoyed when people outside Mayo think the Burkes are silly. They are exceptionally smart and they know what they are doing. I’ve seen people going up to them to try to discuss matters but they are not interested in one-to-one conversations. It feels they are looking for a reaction. For me the key takeaway about them is they know exactly what they are doing. They are media savvy and social media savvy,” Lavelle says.
As a fast-growing, multicultural town with a population of 13,054 in the 2022 census, Castlebar is home to a number of different churches and religious groups.
Reluctant to speak on the controversy, citing his primary duty of pastoral care to his congregation, one local Christian church leader referred The Irish Times to recent comments made by pastor Nick Park, executive director of Evangelical Alliance Ireland.
In a social media video, Park said Enoch Burke’s claim that he was imprisoned for not using certain pronouns was factually incorrect – Burke was jailed for “repeatedly breaching court orders”. Park continued “Christians in Ireland have a fundamental right, both moral and legal, to hold biblical views on sexuality” and this has been acknowledged by the Government. “The fact that Enoch Burke is in prison is a tragedy but it’s a tragedy he can end at any time without compromising his beliefs about gender,” Park said.
The present day reputation of the Burkes seems far removed from a time, less than a decade ago, when some of the then teenage children had part-time jobs in McDonald’s and, in the case of Jemima, enjoyed a work placement for two summers at the Connacht Telegraph. In addition, long before the Burkes became frequent headline makers in the national newspapers, they were known locally for their beautiful harmonies as they sang traditional carols on the streets of Castlebar in the days before Christmas.
It was during this time that one young woman – who didn’t wish to be named – had a revealing interaction with them, she said.
“Myself and my husband went out to their house as they had a piano for sale. We bought the piano from them. At the time I hadn’t a clue about them or their beliefs but did notice that day as I looked around the warehouse where the pianos were that there was a lot of religious paraphernalia and posters on the wall,” she says.
Some days later Sean and two of the boys, then teenagers, delivered the piano to their house. They offered to do a demonstration on the piano. “I think it was Enoch and Simeon” who played, she recalls. “They were gifted, both young lads. They were just incredible musicians. I remember saying: ‘Wow! You were amazing lads, that is so good.’ But it was literally blank stares back at me.”
When they were leaving, she says, Sean gave her a religious pamphlet and told her he knew where he would be going when he died, and asked her whether she knew.
“He suggested that I may not be going there unless I repented for all my sins. I said: ‘Ah you are grand thanks, you are fine’, and they gave me a look of pure pity. It was quite funny at the time. I threw away the pamphlet and I haven’t repented since.”
