{"id":101056,"date":"2025-10-03T11:36:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-03T11:36:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/101056\/"},"modified":"2025-10-03T11:36:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-03T11:36:10","slug":"elijah-burke-removed-from-catherine-connolly-event-after-attempted-interruption-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/101056\/","title":{"rendered":"Elijah Burke removed from Catherine Connolly event after attempted interruption \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

An event featuring Independent presidential election<\/a> candidate Catherine Connolly<\/a> at the University of Galway<\/a> on Thursday evening was delayed by some 20 minutes when a member of Enoch Burke<\/a>\u2019s family interrupted proceedings before being removed by garda\u00ed<\/a> and security.<\/p>\n

Elijah Burke, who is a younger brother of Enoch, brought proceedings to a halt shortly after they began by interrupting speakers and refusing to take a seat.<\/p>\n

Mr Burke, who was an unsuccessful candidate in last year\u2019s students\u2019 union elections at the university, made a number of attempts to question Ms Connolly, but was repeatedly shouted down by a large crowd of some 500 students.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do you have to say tonight about Enoch Burke, my brother, who was incarcerated for his views on transgenderism,\u201d Mr Burke asked Ms Connolly. \u201cDo you believe that religion and belief should be protected?\u201d<\/p>\n

Two women , who were recording Mr Burke, were removed by garda\u00ed after they also attempted to question Ms Connolly from the floor.<\/p>\n

The event, which was organised by the university\u2019s Literary and Debating society, had been billed as a presidential debate, and two empty chairs were left at the top table for Jim Gavin of Fianna F\u00e1il and Heather Humphreys of Fine Gael who were unable to attend.<\/p>\n

When proceedings restarted, Ms Connolly answered questions on a number of issues including Gaza, Ursula N\u00ed Shionnain and Maria Steen.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0\u00c9ir\u00edg\u00ed said Ursula N\u00ed Shionnain still member in 2018 when employed by Catherine Connolly in Leinster HouseOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Ms Connolly said she would have faced a real dilemma if she had been asked earlier to support the nomination of Maria Steen to run as president.<\/p>\n

Ms Connolly, who supported Gemma Doherty\u2019s bid to run for president in 2018, said the call to support Steen came too late to be considered.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is important to put me under pressure in relation to that [issue]. I was spared the pressure because I wasn\u2019t asked until the day I was going down with my own nomination,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHad I been asked in time, it would have been a dilemma. I nominated Gemma Doherty [in 2018], but I didn\u2019t endorse her. She was an award-winning journalist.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a serious question. I was so busy with my own campaign. I got a phone call on the Tuesday, when I was going down to the Customs House with my own nomination.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms Connolly was also questioned about Ursula N\u00ed Shionnain, who she attempted to hire as administrative support when she was on the Oireachtas committee for the Irish language in 2018.<\/p>\n

Ms N\u00ed Shionnain, a former member of \u00c9ir\u00edg\u00ed, was sentenced to six years in jail in 2014 after being found guilty by the Special Criminal Court of unlawful possession of firearms.<\/p>\n

Ms Connolly defended the decision to offer her the job, saying that Ms N\u00ed Shionnain was an example of a positive outcome from the prison system.<\/p>\n

She also raised questions about how this incident was brought into the public domain as well as the presidential election.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow this became a story in itself is a serious question. How this came out, a garda vetting to come out in this manner, questions need to be asked,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know what kind of society we have when somebody\u2019s name would be brought into the public domain like this.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomeone who was found guilty, who served her sentence, learned and moved on to greater things. I wish her all the best.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is the purpose of a prison. Primarily to protect society, but also to reform the citizen. This is one wonderful example of someone who realised that they had done wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking on Gaza and the detention of several Irish members of the Global Sumud Flotilla, she said the Government should have sent a naval ship to protect the Irish citizens.<\/p>\n

She also called for the Government to \u201cstart inspecting the planes at Shannon Airport\u201d, saying that Ireland \u201ccannot take the word of our allies that arms are not going through that airport\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An event featuring Independent presidential election candidate Catherine Connolly at the University of Galway on Thursday evening was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":101057,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[9,10,18,13,14,6,19,17,7335,11,12,15,16,5,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-101056","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-featured-news","12":"tag-featurednews","13":"tag-headlines","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-ireland","16":"tag-irish-politics","17":"tag-latest-news","18":"tag-latestnews","19":"tag-main-news","20":"tag-mainnews","21":"tag-news","22":"tag-top-stories","23":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101056","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101056"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101056\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/101057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}