A member of the Burke family from Castlebar, Co Mayo, has spent more than €45,000 on Facebook advertisements over the past six years, according to data made publicly available by Meta, the owner of the platform.
The money has been spent promoting uploaded videos on the Facebook page of Josiah Burke, whose most recent upload is a video of his mother, Martina, and his brother, Isaac, speaking to the camera outside the Ireland Funds gala dinner in Washington, DC.
The video was made just after Martina, Isaac and Ammi Burke had been ejected when they tried to stage a protest at the Thursday night event.
Members of the Burke family travelled to Washington as the Taoiseach, Micheál Martin, was to meet US president Donald Trump and attend the gala dinner and other events.
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The Meta ad library data shows the video from Washington began running as an advertisement at around 9am on Friday and had cost Josiah Burke between €300 and €400 by Sunday afternoon, when it had between 100,000 and 125,000 impressions (times it was on a screen). Approximately one quarter of the views were in Dublin and the largest demographic group were older women, according to the data.
The ad library service maintained by Meta gives data on paid-for posts that are treated as advertisements and given greater prominence than would otherwise be the case.
Ads about social, electoral and political issues must carry a disclaimer stating who paid for them.
The next most recent paid-for post on Josiah Burke’s Facebook page ran between March 7th and 12th and stated, incorrectly, that Josiah’s brother, Enoch, was to be “stripped of his salary after refusing to affirm transgenderism”.
In fact, the High Court is to appoint a receiver with power to collect Enoch Burke’s salary so that outstanding fines of approximately €80,000 can be settled, arising from his civil contempt of court for refusing to obey a court order that he stay away from Wilson’s Hospital School, Co Westmeath.
Although sacked from the school, Mr Burke continues to be paid his salary on an administrative leave basis because an appeal over his termination is still pending. He has also been continuing to turn up at the school in recent times, though no new application has been made to the court that he be returned to jail for continuing with his contempt.
The advertisement cost Josiah Burke between €600 and €700 and had between 200,000 and 250,000 impressions, according to Meta.
The ad library data shows that sums of varying amounts, usually approximately €600 to €700, are being paid three to four times monthly to promote videos and statements uploaded on Josiah Burke’s page.
The bulk of the advertisements are focused on the Enoch Burke controversy but also include other issues adopted by the family, including the hate crime legislation, Simeon Burke’s difficulty in getting a master under the Bar Council’s tutoring system, issues to do with the health service and the pandemic, and attacks on certain politicians, including the Taoiseach, Mr Martin, and the Tánaiste, Simon Harris.
One recent advertisement that cost between €400 and €500 had between 175,000 and 200,000 impressions, and ran for a week on Facebook, according to Meta.
The post shows Martina and Isaac Burke in Galway where, the post said, family member were “left shaken after being manhandled” at an event being attended by the Attorney General, Rossa Fanning SC.
Some of the postings on the ad library service have had their content removed for breaching Meta’s advertising standards. Explanations given for the removal of the Burke ads include containing misinformation and failure to declare who had paid for them.
