Career
Described as "one of Ireland"s greatest judges" and the "outstanding legal reforming mind of his generation" by Professor John Jay Lee, Walsh is seen as a reforming judge who sat on such key cases as Byrne v. Ireland (1972) - unconstitutionality of state immunity in tort.
McGee v.
The Attorney General (1974) - right to marital privacy and contraceptives. Crotty v An Taoiseach (1987) - ratification of European Union treaties. He was one of the dissenting minority in the case at the European Court of Human Rights that ruled in 1981 that the United Kingdom had breached the Convention in the matter of Northern Ireland"s law criminalising homosexual acts.
Outside the bench, Walsh was the president of the Law Reform Commission from 1975-1985 and led the Irish delegation to the Anglo-Irish Law Enforcement Commission.