[4] Until the age of fifteen, Walsh attended a local school in Bandon, but by his own account "as far as learning went, I may as well have been at home".

Like O'Hegarty, he spent three years in London at King's College, studying for the Secretary's Office "a syllabus (which) differed little from the Indian Civil Service".

With this intensely organised instrument, war was declared on foreign games which were made to feel the shock so heavily that one by one, Soccer and Rugby Clubs began to disappear.

In later 1917 he was arrested and imprisoned after making a speech declaring "the only way to address John Bull is through the barrel of a rifle".

He was released in 1921 and supported the Anglo-Irish Treaty and went on to become a founding member of the new political party, Cumann na nGaedheal.

Walsh served as Postmaster General from 1922 until 1924 and joined the cabinet of W. T. Cosgrave between 1924 and 1927, after the office was reconstituted as the Department of Posts and Telegraphs.

In August 1922 he was part of a government committee which was intended to consider what the Irish Free State's policy towards North-east Ulster would be.

Their request to the Minister for Justice, Gerald Boland, to place a tap on Walsh's phone was, however, refused.