When Judge Brian Cregan made an order last week to send Martina and Ammi Burke to jail, he did so with the exasperated words: “It is long past time for the court to call a halt to this family circus.”

You don’t have to be a fan of the mobster movie genre to understand that taking the head of the family out of circulation is usually thought of as the best way to achieve this. I am not suggesting, of course, Martina Burke is a Toto Riina or even a Tony Soprano. She is an evangelical Christian, a teacher and a God-fearing mother of 10 preternaturally gifted adult offspring. She had never, until this week, been accused of anything more serious than making a nuisance of herself. In fairness, she does a lot of that.

But having sat through five months of Enoch Burke-related hearings, Cregan had enough. “Mrs [Martina] Burke and Ms [Ammi] Burke – just like their brother Enoch – are not exceptional. They are just exceptionally unable to accept what every other citizen in this Republic accepts every day ... We live in a democracy governed by the rule of law and not a theocracy governed by the Burke family.”

You can understand his frustration over their stubborn intransigence, their shoutiness, the endless court hours dedicated to dealing with them – mostly not very effectively. To their credit, the Burkes are not oblivious to this either. “So that’s one, two, three, four, five, seven, six, seven, 10 gardaí arrived at court today to arrest Ammi Burke and Martina Burke,” says a female voice in a video Josiah Burke........

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