A new ball game

Much of the Wexford countryside on the approach to Enniscorthy is suspended in a covering of frost. Even the animals in the fields appear motionless. It is a bright, winter morning and each gulp of the sharp, cold air consistently manages to surprise. It is as if no matter how cold you think you are, you can feel colder. It is necessary to cross the Slaney twice, via two bridges, to reach Ensor's office on Court Street. Enniscorthy is a busy and historic market town. But the people still have to time to stop and chat. A composed-looking pigeon perches on the head of Sheppard's bronze of the Boolavogue hero, Father Murphy.

Equally composed is the methodical, highly organised Tony Ensor, a fit-looking, 50-year-old solicitor who is the new president of the Law Society and appears to reside on the quietly happy side of contented. It is more than 20 years since he and his wife, Beatrice Carton, then newly married young solicitors, decided to leave Dublin and move south. They were lucky to be both offered jobs in the same Enniscorthy law firm of the late Des McEvoy, a former junior vice-president of the Law Society. That was in 1976.

Three years earlier Ensor had begun another career, as an international rugby player. Although capped 22 times at fullback and still remembered by the schoolgirls of that time as one of the better looking Irish players, he is not particularly forthcoming with stories of his playing days. His international career spanned five years. It also coincided with the great days of a legendary Welsh team whose beautiful flowing style of play personified the game at its best. Ensor makes no secret of the fact that the current state of rugby, here and elsewhere, is not to his liking, but he is far too diplomatic, as well as being emotionally removed from it all, to launch an impassioned attack.

The death of the amateur game may have elevated playing fitness standards to the highest levels, but it has also caused a serious decline in the sport's behavioural ethics. Consider the boorish finale of the recent World Cup - just when it seemed that rugby, formerly one of the great team sports, was poised to rehabilitate itself.

"I was appalled when I discovered by chance that the entire Australian team had been sent to a rugby league coach to practise their defence," comments Ensor. Once upon a time rugby union players regarded their league counterparts as a lower form of human life. "Well," he says, "they regarded themselves as superior. Sure Australia played very well - they were very efficient, fit and their defence was immaculate - but you have to wonder."

On the quality of the current Irish team, he says: "We have always been heavily dependent on good half-backs, unfortunately at a time when we need them most . . . it is a weakness. We are competitive up front, particularly in the front five, our back play has been very ordinary because of a lack of class half-backs."

He still loves the game, though "not enough to enthuse at going to Lansdowne Road to see Ireland play. There's a lot of fun to still be got from playing the game at local level." Today's schoolboys have little chance of enjoying the sport at a junior level the way he did. "It's because of the pressure on them. If you are a top schoolboy playing on the Irish schools team, there is pressure that you have to make a decision on whether to become a professional player."

Born in Dublin in 1949, Ensor is the second of five children. "I have three brothers and sister. My eldest brother played international cricket in the 1960s." Ensor's love of rugby began as a seven-year-old. His uncle, retired Supreme Court judge John Blaney, was capped once at centre. His was the first green jersey Ensor tried on. The experience certainly influenced him. His father had also played rugby and had captained Wanderers.

Although Gonzaga was not a leading rugby school - "we once beat St Mary's though in the first round of B Division league" - young Ensor, then a fly-half, developed well and was selected in sixth year for Leinster Schools. He enjoyed his years at Gonzaga where he also excelled at tennis, playing at schools interprovincial level. "I love tennis and still play once a week, in fact I could easily have concentrated on tennis and golf," he says and adds that he and his wife run in the woods near their home outside Bunclody. Their son is studying to be a solicitor and their daughter is at university.

Ensor and his wife work together in the practice he formed with Bill O'Connor. "We have six solicitors," says Ensor and much of his firm's work is as law agent for Wexford County Council, Enniscorthy UDC and it has also become increasingly involved in South Eastern Health Board childcare cases. "It's a highly emotive area."

While he claims not to have been particularly academic at school, he did well at English. However, it seems his future legal career was as preordained as his rugby one. Some of his rugby friends had chosen law but there was also a strong family tradition. In addition to Uncle Blaney, there was also Uncle Tom Finlay, the former Chief Justice. "I had cousins who were solicitors, and two of my brothers."

Rugby dominated his time at University College Dublin where he played for the freshmen in first year. By second year, he was playing out-half for the college seconds. In third year, he found his best position, at full-back, and played on the firsts. Quickly establishing a reputation as an attacking full-back, he was also selected for Leinster. On leaving university in 1972 he joined Wanderers, who later that season won the Leinster Senior Cup. He had also begun his legal apprenticeship with a Dublin firm, Hardiman Winder and Stokes. "It was in Harcourt Street, it's gone now." On qualifying he immediately joined the Bank of Ireland's legal department and is candid about the fact that his rugby helped. "There is no denying that being a rugby international did open doors. It does give you a great sense of self-confidence."

After spending a year in waiting as Tom Kieran's understudy, "I was a sub in 1972 when Ireland defeated the French in Paris" (the last time Ireland won against France away), Ensor made his international debut at 24 in 1973, on an Irish team led by Willie John MacBride facing Wales in Cardiff. Ensor's smile confirms that playing the Welsh during those years was unforgettable.

"The one thing that hits you in Cardiff is the singing and it has a devastating effect. It creates the most wonderful atmosphere . . . The first 10 or 15 minutes just passed by. We lost, but we lost against a great Welsh team. And it was close, 12-8." For most of his international career, Ensor was probably the youngest on the team. "I joined an Irish side which was fairly mature; they were called Dad's Army by the English press." They were good, though, and won the Five Nations Championship in 1973. The string of victories the Pontypool front row, Phil Bennett, while his opposing international full-backs included the great Welsh player, J.P.R. Williams, and Scotland's Andy Irvine. Who was the most exciting? "Gerald Davies. He was the most difficult to stop; he could swerve off both feet." He also mentions New Zealander Ian Kirkpatrick and closer to home there was Mike Gibson the elder, "the complete rugby player, a perfectionist. And Ollie Campbell, a world-class out-half."

Having collected 22 caps and toured New Zealand in the spring of 1976, Ensor decided at 28 to retire from the game at the end of the 1978 season. By then he had had two years of commuting from Wexford to Dublin for training and matches. Although nowadays Ensor's rugby involvement is as chairman of Enniscorthy Rugby Club - he is also a member of the IRFU Drugs Appeal Tribunal - he remains, in the public eye at least, a symbol of the distant glory days of Irish rugby. The game is currently in the doldrums, while members of his chosen profession have never been popular, anywhere.

Ensor is too skilled to appear defensive on the subject of lawyers' unpopularity but is quick to point out that if solicitors seem to be making a lot of money out of the current property boom, "they are not making as much as the auctioneers". Like them or loathe them, it is to lawyers we turn in times of stress.

"If you were to do a specific individual poll with people and ask them how they think their lawyer looks after them - and that could be for anything from a drunk driving charge or assault, to advising them on a company takeover - they will often be pleased. But traditionally lawyers, like journalists, are low down on a list of popular professions. Even at the time of Jesus, lawyers were pilloried. I don't think it's possible to change opinion just like that. What I'm conscious of is that individual lawyers do their job well."

So what is the Law Society? "Each solicitor who practises in this country is a member of the Law Society." That membership also includes non-practising solicitors. There is an election to a central council of which there are 31 members. "Those members represent all 7,000 practising and non-practising members. The president of the Law Society is effectively the chairman of the council for the year."

The presidency is decided by annual election of its council; seniority is also a factor. By convention the most senior member of the council who has not previously been president is elected each year. The election is for senior vice-president, who automatically succeeds a year later to be president. Elected as vice-president in November 1998, Ensor succeeded Mayo solicitor Pat O'Connor at the end of last year. He outlines his approach to his new job, which he sees as a chairman's role. "I want to communicate what I hope will be well thought-out decisions by the council of the Law Society and its committees to the members in an effective way, so they will see the necessary and important work we are doing for them." One current issue of great concern to the Law Society is the Government's proposal to extend the workings of the Criminal Justice Act to lawyers, as well as to auctioneers and accountants. Ensor says such proposals represent serious violations of confidentiality, which is the cornerstone of the relationship between a lawyer and his or her client.

"It is a criminal offence for any solicitor to be knowingly involved in laundering the proceeds of crime, under Section 31 of the Criminal Justice Act, and quite rightly so. Of course we accept that; we are wholly opposed to the evils of money laundering. But what we can't support is now being expected to report to the gardai our clients on mere suspicion under Section 57 of the same Act, because we see it as a violation of the fundamental principle of lawyer/client confidentiality."

This fear is shared by lawyers across Europe, he says. There was an EU directive in 1991, which was implemented in the Republic three years later as the Criminal Justice Act, 1994. Designed to counter the laundering of proceeds of drug trafficking, terrorism, intimidation and other serious crimes, the legislation as such is fully supported by Ensor and the Law Society. As it stands, this legislation applies to financial institutions only. Its effect is that anyone unknown to a bank who is opening up an account in the Republic, or anywhere in the EU, must produce evidence of identity and satisfy the financial institution as to the source of the funds. Under this legislation, if a financial institution suspects that it is being used for money laundering it must report this to the police. Now the same may be asked of lawyers.

"What we don't agree with is that, if designated, we would be obliged, in the event of being presented with funds of uncertain providence, to report it. How can a client be absolutely satisfied of confidentiality?" The Law Society hopes the Government may yet reconsider its intention.

Obviously more ambitious than his calm, detached manner suggests, Ensor is modest and wary of resorting to rhetoric or jargon. What does being president of the Law Society mean to him? "Well, it is an honour rather than an achievement to be the public face of some 7,000 of my colleagues throughout the country." For many solicitors, the presidency represents their time in the limelight. Ensor had this before though, having become a national figure through his rugby.

Still for all his pleasant personality, and lack of obvious ego, it is hard work talking him through his rugby career. Every comment he makes about it is by way of answering a question. But Ensor does not mind being remembered as the rugby international. However detached he is now, he loved his playing days. "I enjoyed it all, and I wouldn't swap a minute of it for anything."