She was the eldest of seven siblings, with four sisters, Sheila (or Shel), Eileen (or Elgin), Mary Christina (or Maureen or Monty) and Margaret (or Peggy or Peg), and two brothers, Michael and Kevin.

[2] The Barry family owned an 86-acre dairy farm at Tombeagh, Hacketstown, County Carlow, as well as a shop on the ground floor of their Fleet Street home.

While she was a committed republican, Moloney was restricted in her activities as she had to help her mother and aunt care for her younger siblings and manage the family business.

She joined the university branch of Cumann na mBan in late 1920, where she would occasionally carry guns and messages, and cleared any incriminating evidence from sites that were in danger of being raided.

[1] At the outbreak of the Irish Civil War, she was one of three women, including Muriel MacSwiney and Linda Kearns,[3][4] who stayed behind with the relocated anti-treaty headquarters garrison in the Hammam Hotel after they lost the Four Courts.

From June 1922, she was an active member of the Irish Republican Prisoners' Dependants' Fund, taking the role of general secretary from December 1922 until September 1924, which saw her travel across Ireland to distribute relief.

[3] He was a recently released republican prisoner whose father, Patrick James Moloney (1869–1947), was a pharmaceutical chemist and Sinn Féin TD in Tipperary from 1919 to 1923, being re-elected in June 1922 as an anti-treaty candidate.

When Moloney's mother-in-law remarried, the ownership and management of the medical hall was contested, leading to her husband struggling to find stable employment.

[1] Moloney returned to work after the birth of her fifth child to become a sales publicity advisor with the ESB from 1930 to 1950, for a number of years she was the family's chief earner.