She was born Margaret Bermingham[1] in Corballis, a townland now part of the village of Skryne in County Meath,[2] where her father, Nicholas, had purchased a farm when he emigrated from England.

When she was 16 years old, Margaret Bermingham married Bartholomew Ball, an alderman of the City of Dublin, whose wealthy family operated the bridge over the River Dodder, which is still known as Ballsbridge.

She then moved to the city, where the couple lived at Ballygall House in north county Dublin and had a townhouse on Merchant's Quay.

[1] Margaret Ball's eldest son, Walter, who wanted to follow in his father's footsteps and advance his political career, embraced the "new religion" and was appointed Commissioner for Ecclesiastical Causes in 1577.

Two generations later, this pattern was repeated when Blessed Francis Taylor, who was Mayor of Dublin (1595–1596) and was married to Gennet Shelton, a granddaughter of Ball's, was condemned to the dungeons after exposing fraud in the parliamentary elections to the Irish House of Commons.

Ball and Taylor could not have known each other, but they were beatified together, along with Dermot O'Hurley and 14 other Catholic martyrs, on 27 September 1992 by Pope John Paul II.

[1] Ball, along with St. Columbanus and St. Mary MacKillop RSJ, was named a patron saint of the 50th International Eucharistic Congress held in Ireland in June 2012.