Kev Carmody was born in 1946 in Cairns, Queensland. His father was a second-generation Irish descendant and his mother an Indigenous Australian. His younger brother, Laurie, was born three and a half years later. His family moved to southern Queensland in early 1950, and he grew up on a cattle station near Goranba, west of Dalby in the Darling Downs area of south eastern Queensland. His parents worked as drovers, moving cattle along stock routes. At ten years of age, Carmody and his brother were taken from their parents under the assimilation policy as part of the Stolen Generations and sent to a Catholic school in Toowoomba. After schooling, he returned to his rural roots and worked for seventeen years as a country labourer, including droving, shearing, bag lumping, wool pressing and welding.