Ward had been born in Stockport, England, on 10 January 1949. She was the second of five children born to an English mother and an Irish father. Contemporary records indicate she was a lonely child who was raised in a broken home. Upon leaving school in 1965, Ward trained as a riding instructor and stable hand in Wiltshire, England before obtaining employment at a riding school in Ravensdale, County Louth, Ireland, close to the town of Dundalk. In the years between leaving school and her arrest, she had frequently divided her time between Ravensdale, Wiltshire, and her home town of Stockport, which she had first returned to from Dundalk in October 1970.