From Conor McGregor to Enoch Burke: The high profile cases set for a decision in 2026

We can expect to see many familiar faces contesting and defending cases during 2026.

Among them will be MMA fighter Conor McGregor, and the nimble-­footed dancer Michael Flatley and, of course, Enoch Burke and his family are unlikely to be far from the Four Courts as their legal battles continue in the new year.

New rules promising to tighten up the grounds on which judicial reviews can be taken, may lessen the number of cases which threaten major infrastructure projects, but there are still cases pending, including a challenge to the extension of the Luas line.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court will be dealing with weighty issues such as the State’s obligations to asylum ­seekers, and the citizenship rights of children born to same sex couples ­living abroad.

The Criminal Courts of Justice will continue to hear a wide range of cases, including the alleged knife attack outside a school on Parnell Square that preceded the Dublin riots, while two high-profile murder appeals – from Jozef Puska and Richard Satchwell – could be heard in the coming year.

High Court

Conor McGregor

Conor McGregor outside Dublin courts in November 2024. (RollingNews.ie)

The MMA fighter has claimed he was defamed by a Sky journalist who allegedly called him a rapist, after a High Court jury found him liable for assaulting Nikita Hand.

He claims the allegation was made during a ‘media scrum’ which followed the verdict.

Ms Hand, a 36-year-old hair colourist, had won her personal injury claim against McGregor in November 2024, and was awarded almost €250,000 in damages.

McGregor had not faced a criminal charge of rape. Ms Hand took her legal action after the DPP decided not to prosecute him.

When McGregor challenged the verdict of the civil jury, the Court of Appeal noted that the jury were clear that the form of assault was rape.

The Supreme Court has ruled that it will not hear his appeal, which had also been aimed at overturning the verdict.

His defamation case was launched in November 2025, and is expected to progress through the courts in 2026.

McGregor is himself being sued by his former sparring partner, Artem Lobov. The retired fighter known as ‘The Russian Hammer’ is claiming a €6m share of his whiskey brand. That case is due for hearing in April.

Meanwhile, McGregor’s friend, James Lawrence, is suing Nikita Hand. He has accused her of taking a ‘frivolous legal action’ against him, after he was cleared of assault by the same High Court jury in November 2024.

Both men are represented by the same firm of solicitors, and the courts have heard that McGregor has been paying Mr Lawrence’s legal costs.

Michael Flatley

Michael Flatley. (RollingNews.ie)

The former Riverdance star has been locked in a Commercial Court battle concerning renovations to his Castlehyde mansion in Cork for two years.

Flatley claims he and his family had to leave the house in October 2023 after alleged toxic chemical residue was detected during routine maintenance.

Mr Flatley is suing Austin Newport Group Ltd, the main contractor, together with a number of insurers, who all deny his allegations.

The case has yet to have a full hearing – but that hasn’t stopped it coming before the court for mention on dozens of occasions. The matter took a twist earlier this year, when Flatley, who lives in Monaco, said he intended to move to Ireland to contest the presidential election.

However, Judge Eileen Roberts said this was not enough for him to avoid having to lodge €1.1million in potential legal fees into court.

She said Mr Flatley did not have enough equity in Castlehyde to fund his legal action seeking €30million over allegedly defective renovations to the mansion, should he lose the case.

She said the evidence also did not show that he had sufficient money in his Lord of the Dance interests or his whiskey business.

If he lived in Ireland or an EU country, the defendants – a developer and insurers – would not be able to press for ‘security for costs’.

Judge Roberts said the proceedings were now at an advanced stage, but a trial date in 2026 has not yet been fixed.

Enoch Burke

Enoch Burke in August 2023. (RollingNews.ie)

The former teacher remains behind bars as 2026 begins, but January could see his release – whether he wants it or not.

Enoch Burke has been imprisoned for a fourth time in Mountjoy, for failing to obey a High Court order to stay away from Wilson’s Hospital School in Westmeath.

However, a disciplinary appeals panel will, within a matter of weeks, recommend to the school’s board of management whether Mr Burke’s dismissal from the school should be upheld.

He was dismissed in January 2023, following his reaction to being asked to call a transitioning student by a new name and the pronoun ‘they’.

Should this dismissal be overturned, he will be free to return to the school and continue his teaching of ­German and Irish.

However, if it is upheld, the court order will remain, and he will remain in prison until he purges his contempt, and agrees to stay away. When he was most recently sent to jail, last November, Judge Brian Cregan said Mr Burke had been willing to sacrifice his former pupils ‘on the altar of his fanatical campaign against transgenderism’ and had been verbally aggressive and bullying to his school and the courts.

He said Mr Burke had continually breached the court order not to trespass on school grounds.

The judge said Mr Burke was a potential danger to staff and pupils, and had ‘no more right to be on the school grounds than he has to rob money from a bank’.

He continued: ‘He has mendaciously claimed, repeatedly, that he has been jailed because of his opposition to transgenderism. That is completely false. He has been jailed because he has breached court orders directing him not to trespass on school property.’

Judge Cregan also noted that the wider Burke family had been trespassing on Mr Burke’s former school ‘as a form of political protest to draw attention to their campaign against transgenderism’.

He also said Mr Burke had the ‘keys to his own prison’ and could be set free at any time, if he purged his contempt.

Supreme Court

The Supreme Court will hear a landmark appeal next year over the State’s alleged requirement to house all asylum seekers.

The original case focused on an Indian and an Afghan national, who slept on the streets of Dublin, often in wet or freezing conditions, after accommodation could not be found for them.

The Minister for Integration, the Attorney General and the State accepted that they had failed to provide accommodation to the two men, as they were required to under EU law.

However, they disputed that the men should be entitled to damages, claiming the breaches of EU law were due to circumstances beyond its control, due to an ‘unprecedented influx’ of people seeking protection.

The High Court found in August 2024 that, in failing to provide them with accommodation, the State had breached the human right to dignity of single male international protection applicants.

This was overturned by the Court of Appeal in July 2025. That decision has now been appealed by the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, and the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the appeal next year.

A panel of Supreme Court judges said the case is of general public importance, and would address the potential liability of the State should it not be able to provide housing to an asylum seeker.

The Supreme Court will also give a key ruling in 2026 about when Irish citizenship can be granted to children born to same-sex parents living abroad.

The State has appealed a High Court ruling that found the laws as applied had failed two families who used donor-assisted human reproduction.

An Irish mother in Australia is named on her children’s birth certificates, but has not been able to get her children Irish passports as she is not their gestational mother, biological father or adoptive parent.

In the other case, a passport was refused for a Spanish-born child, whose Irish, genetic mother was not the gestational mother, having donated her egg to her partner.

The State has argued that the High Court failed to determine properly the nature and extent of the State’s equality obligations in such situations.

It said there was a need for certainty about who qualifies as a parent or mother, with a view to the development of the law in an area of ‘particular sensitivity’.

The current law on Irish citizenship by descent dates back to 1956, and the High Court has said it cannot currently extend to a non-genetic, non-­gestational parent.

Court of Appeal

January 19, 2022: Jozef Puska being brought before a special sitting of the Tullamore District Court. (RollingNews.ie)

Two high-profile murder appeals – from Jozef Puska and Richard Satchwell – could be heard in the coming year.

Jozef Puska has been granted legal aid to appeal his conviction for murdering school teacher Ashling Murphy.

Prior to a jury being sworn in to hear Puska’s trial last year, his lawyers made a number of objections to the evidence the prosecution intended to call. The defence argued that the jury should not hear Puska’s confession to gardaí two days after the stabbing.

They said Puska was suffering the effects of abdominal surgery and was under the influence of the painkiller oxycodone, and his confession was therefore involuntary.

They also objected to the prosecution showing CCTV footage of Puska stalking two women in Tullamore town centre before heading to the canal where he came upon Ashling Murphy, walking alone.

The trial judge’s decisions to allow those and other pieces of evidence to go before the jury are likely to form the basis of Puska’s appeal.

Puska, 33, with an address at Lynally Grove, Mucklagh, Co Offaly, had pleaded not guilty to murdering Ms Murphy at Cappincur, Tullamore, Co. Offaly, on January 12, 2022.

A jury convicted him by a unanimous verdict following a trial last year.

23-year-old Ashling Murphy was fatally attached while jogging in Tullamore, Co Offaly on January 12, 2022.

The jury found that Puska stabbed Ashling Murphy 11 times in the neck and slashed her once with the edge of a blade before leaving her to die in the thick thorns and brambles by the side of the canal towpath between Tullamore town and Digby Bridge.

Meanwhile, Richard Satchwell has lodged an appeal against his conviction for the murder of his wife Tina Satchwell, who he admitted to burying beneath a concrete floor in their East Cork home.

The appeal was lodged on June 4, 2025 – the day he was jailed for life for his wife’s murder, it is understood.

Satchwell, 58, had pleaded not guilty to the murder of his wife on March 20, 2017, at their home on Grattan Street, Youghal.

Ms Satchwell’s skeletal remains were found in a shallow grave under a concrete floor in the sitting room of her home during an invasive search of the property in October 2023.

It is understood that up to six grounds of appeal will be claimed.

Those include material put to the jury – including the truck driver’s reply to gardaí after being charged with murder. They also include the alleged lack of direct evidence to support intent, as is required for a murder charge, such as the absence of an established cause of death for Ms Satchwell.

His defence team may also explore the final charge to the jury by trial judge Paul McDermott. At the time, his barrister complained that the judge’s speech did not give enough weight to Satchwell’s claim of self-defence.

Central Criminal Court

November 23, 2023: An Garda Síochána and emergency services at the scene of the knife attack on Parnell Square East in Dublin. (RollingNews.ie)

Riad Bouchaker could stand trial this year for the attempted murder of three children in a knife attack outside a school on Parnell Square. The 51-year-old, of no fixed abode, is charged with the attempted murder of two girls and one boy, and with assault causing serious harm to a care worker and possession or production of a knife.

The incident occurred at Parnell Square, Dublin, on the afternoon of November 23, 2023.

In February 2025, the Department of Justice and the courts announced a protocol to fast-track trials involving children.

The courts have committed to completing the trial process within one year, where possible, if a child is the alleged victim or perpetrator.

However, Mr Bouchaker’s case has been delayed due to the preparation of various psychiatric and psychological reports.

Central Criminal Court Judge Paul McDermott has asked that everyone involved, including lawyers and professionals, ‘strain themselves’ to ensure it gets on as quickly as possible.

Separately, senior Kinahan gang figure Seán McGovern is awaiting trial before the Special Criminal Court for the murder of Noel Kirwan.

McGovern was extradited from the UAE in May 2025, having been the subject of an Interpol red notice.

He is accused of the feud murder of Noel Kirwan, 62, at St Ronan’s Drive in Clondalkin, Dublin, on December 22, 2016.

Sean McGovern. (Interpol)

The grandfather, known as ‘Duck Egg’, was shot dead as he sat in his car with his partner in the driveway of her home.

Mr Kirwan was not involved in the feud but was targeted after being spotted beside Gerard ‘The Monk’ Hutch at a funeral.

McGovern is further accused of directing the activities of a criminal organisation in relation to Mr Kirwan’s murder from October 20 to December 22, 2016.

He is also charged with enhancing the abilities of a crime gang to carry out that murder between the same dates within the state.

He also faces two additional charges relating to a plot to ­murder James ‘Mago’ Gately, an associate of the Hutch gang, more than eight years ago.

He is charged with both directing a crime gang to carry out surveillance of Gately, and facilitating a criminal organisation relating to the conspiracy to murder Gately between October 17, 2015, and April 6, 2017.

The maximum penalty on conviction for directing a crime gang is life imprisonment, while McGovern faces the mandatory life sentence if found guilty of Mr Kirwan’s murder.

* This article was originally published on Extra.ie.