Irish county organizations were first organized in New York City in the late 1840s. The early societies were for the most part purely social organizations, but in the 1870s some started to offer benefits for sickness and death. Sports teams eventually became an important component of county organizations, especially hurling and Gaelic football clubs. In the 1880s, inspired by the land reform movement in Ireland, many additional county societies were organized. Evictions and high rents were often fought on a local basis in Ireland, and in New York a county society rather than one of the broader Irish fraternal or social organizations could often respond better or faster to sudden developments in the old country. In the early 1890s the first attempt was made to establish a central body to coordinate the Irish county societies; such an organization was set up in Manhattan and at the same time a similar coordinating body was formed in Brooklyn, where many county societies existed independently. Both of these overseeing bodies were similar in design to the present-day United Irish Counties Association (UICA), but after only a few years of work the early umbrella organizations went out of existence.

A detailed and informative history of county societies in New York by John T. Ridge, Mary McMullan and Mae O'Driscoll(from which the text above was excerpted and adapted) can be found on the UICA web site, at:

http://www.uicany.org/United_Irish_Counties/History.html