ENOCH Burke is back in prison, again. This time, he’s not even getting out for Christmas.
Three and a half years into this saga, and with no clear end in sight, the only surprising thing about it all is that there is still so much confusion.
Pick a news story, literally any news story, on this topic, then scroll to the comments, and you will be dazzled by the array of myths and misapprehensions on display.
They range from the simple to the disingenuous.
Some claim that he has every right to turn up to his former school, Wilson’s Hospital School in Co Westmeath. In fact he does not: he is subject to a court order specifically telling him to stay away from it.
Others claim that he still works there. Again, he does not: he was dismissed in January 2003, although he is appealing that decision.
The most recent and most over-the-top addition to the pantheon is the claim that he has been jailed for life. Of course, the truth is that he could end this at any moment, if he wanted to.
The most common misapprehension of all, though, and the one that the Burke family has worked quite hard to promote and sustain, is that Enoch lost his job due to a nebulous force called transgenderism.
The facts contradict this at every turn.
The order from the school principal that Burke first objected to was connected to a student’s pronouns, but that is immaterial; the order could have been about anything at all.
Burke did not like what his boss asked. We have all been there. Most of us old enough to have a few years of work experience understand that, sometimes, we will encounter an instruction that we don’t like.
We also understand that there is a way to respond to such an order that might best get the results we want: a judicious email, a chat with a union representative or HR staff about accommodations. We know that we have employment rights.
We also understand that certain actions, however tempting, will result in a swift P45, and one of those is berating your boss in a public space.
Enoch Burke is educated, and his family unit is exceptionally qualified in a number of fields, including law. They know that there are certain things you just cannot do in the workplace. He did them anyway.
And when he lost his job, he understood that he could not simply continue showing up and expect reality itself to change. He did so, anyway.
He knows that he could be released from prison with a promise; he chooses to claim that he has been imprisoned for life.
He is the architect of his own situation, and should he want to leave prison he could do so easily; all he has to do is to purge his contempt.
When you struggle through the relentless hot air around this case, one question still remains; why?
Having accrued court fees for repeated breaches of the court order, by now Burke owes the state a pretty penny. At this stage, his reputation is such that he would be a daunting prospect for any school recruitment team.
His family, equally, have undoubtedly damaged their professional reputations to various degrees, having been physically removed from more court rooms than most of us will ever see in our lives.
If anything, he and his family are stepping up their campaign of interminable shouting at anyone and everyone, however tenuous their influence on the case. They are making things worse with every passing day. So, why?
The myth-factory that is social media would have us all believe it’s because of his principles, his faith, his determination to face down the spectre of pronouns.
Judge Cregan, before whom Burke appeared last week, suspects something else, suggesting that he had made a calculation that “brought him notoriety and his 15 minutes of fame”.
He didn’t stop there, and implied that there is a financial motivation behind this push for endless court appearances and the campaign of all-island outrageous stunts.
One thing is clear: the whole circus is built on a foundation of lies, and it is irresponsible and dangerous to let those lies sit unchallenged.
The Irish legal system seems to have the measure of Burke, but it’s important that all of us do, too, before he fleeces us and leaves us with nothing to show for it but a bottle of snake oil.