John Walsh and his wife Letitia Hewitt lived at Ballybeg Townland in Taghsheenod Parish for many years, and certainly up to the time of John Walsh's death (buried 22 June 1838 in Taghsheenod Cemetery according to Bishop's Visitation). The farm was in the hollow just north of the hill where Richmount is located.

The Walsh family were among the poor, "day labourer" Protestant families in Co. Longford, and thus do not show up in the land lease records or voting lists in the way that Moffatts, McCloughreys, Wilsons or Shaws do. However they do show up in parish registers, and in the Charleton Marriage Gratuity records.

John Walsh also shows in the Ballybeg tithe applotment, the landlord being James A. Richardson, who lived in the adjacent Richmount. Noteworthy is that Bryan Quann (later known as Quirn, an associate family of Walshes) also had land in Ballybeg in 1834, when the tithe applotment data was collected for Taghsheenod Parish.

The Walsh family emigrated to eastern Ontario one or a few at a time, beginning in the early 1830s with mother Letitia not travelling to Cumberland Twp., Ontario until 1848. Soon after arriving in Ontario, John Moffatt, son of Samuel Moffatt, married Eliza Walsh, and Eliza's brother Richard Walsh married John's sister Eleanor Moffatt.