A county is a geographic region within

Gaelic games Gaelic games ( ga, Cluichí Gaelacha) are a set of sports played worldwide, though they are particularly popular in Ireland, where they originated. They include Gaelic football, hurling, Gaelic handball and rounders. Football and hurling ...

, controlled by a county board of the

Gaelic Athletic Association The Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA; ga, Cumann Lúthchleas Gael ; CLG) is an Irish international amateur sporting and cultural organisation, focused primarily on promoting indigenous Gaelic games and pastimes, which include the traditional ...

(GAA) and originally based on the 32

counties of Ireland The counties of Ireland ( Irish: ) are historic administrative divisions of the island into thirty-two units. They began as Norman structures, and as the powers exercised by the Cambro-Norman barons and the Old English nobility waned over time ...

as they were in 1884. While the administrative geography of Ireland has since changed, with several new counties created and the six that make up

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label=Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is #Descriptions, variously described as ...

superseded by 11 local government districts, the counties in Gaelic games have remained largely unchanged. However, the county as used in Gaelic games does not always and everywhere cover precisely the same territory as the traditional county. Particularly in the first 50 years of the Association but also in more recent times, there are many examples of clubs based in one of the administrative counties being allowed to participate in the leagues or championships of a neighbouring county. There are also instances where the official county boundary does not coincide precisely with the county as used in Gaelic games, for example where a club is based on a parish that crosses the county border. While in most cases the name of the county as used in Gaelic games is the same as that of the current or former administrative county, there have been exceptions:

Derry Derry, officially Londonderry (), is the second-largest city in Northern Ireland and the fifth-largest city on the island of Ireland. The name ''Derry'' is an anglicisation of the Old Irish name (modern Irish: ) meaning 'oak grove'. The ...

has never used the official county name of Londonderry, and the board of the county then officially known as Queen's County changed its name in 1907 to Leix and Ossary, later becoming

Laois County Laois ( ; gle, Contae Laoise) is a county in Ireland. It is part of the Eastern and Midland Region and in the province of Leinster. It was known as Queen's County from 1556 to 1922. The modern county takes its name from Loígis, a medi ...

. Each county board is responsible for organising GAA club fixtures within the county, and for the promotion and development of Gaelic games and the other objectives of the Association. The county can also refer to the

inter-county Inter-county, or inter county is Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) terminology which refers to competitions or matches between counties, as used in Gaelic games (differently from legal counties). The term can also be used to describe the players o ...

teams fielded by each county board. While in general any county, and only a county, is eligible to compete in the provincial and national championships and leagues, and almost all do so, again there can be anomalies: in the

National Hurling League The National Hurling League is an annual inter-county hurling competition featuring teams from Ireland and England. Founded in 1925 by the Gaelic Athletic Association, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation within the league system. ...

, for example, a team representing Fingal — a sub-region of the GAA county of Dublin, corresponding to the modern administrative county of

Fingal Fingal ( ; ) is a county in Ireland. It is located in the province of Leinster and is part of the Eastern and Midland Region. It is one of three successor counties to County Dublin, which was disestablished for administrative purposes in 1994. ...

— previously competed against other counties. Since the inception of the county system, there have been changes to the respective regions of control of the overseas units. In Ireland the concept of the county is very strong and changing the county boundary is extremely controversial. In 2002 a proposal to divide

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 ...

in two was quickly and strongly opposed.

County boards

Listed below are the 32 county boards based in Ireland and the province (and, hence, the provincial council) to which each is affiliated. Also provided is a map showing the location of the province, i.e. north, south, east, west.

County teams

Listed below are all the national and overseas county teams (as of 2022).

Overseas county boards

Counties as used in Gaelic games outside Ireland cover large geographic non-traditional areas which are not considered as counties in any other context. For example,

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to ...

is a county for GAA purposes, as is

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

, while the remaining counties of

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It ...

cover wider areas than their names suggest. The Hertfordshire County Board, for example, oversees clubs in Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Oxfordshire; Gloucestershire GAA reaches into South Wales, Warwickshire GAA includes Staffordshire and Birmingham, and so on. There are also "county boards" for

Australasia Australasia is a region that comprises Australia, New Zealand and some neighbouring islands in the Pacific Ocean. The term is used in a number of different contexts, including geopolitically, physiogeographically, philologically, and ecologic ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by to ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

, the rest of

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and th ...

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

and

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an are ...

, while other overseas GAA regions such as the Cayman Islands operate with their own structures not including county boards.GAA Overseas Units official booklet
/ref> London enters a county team in the National Football League and the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship, while it also enters another county team in the National Hurling League and the All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship. London's county football team reached the

2013 Connacht Senior Football Championship The 2013 Connacht Senior Football Championship was that year's installment of the annual Connacht Senior Football Championship held under the auspices of the Connacht GAA. It was won by Mayo who defeated London in a final, which, historically, was ...

final. New York enters a county team in the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship. Warwickshire enters a county team in the National Hurling League and All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship, while Lancashire enters a county team in both. Scotland does not currently enter a team, nor do Gloucestershire, Hertfordshire or Yorkshire. As of 2023, no team from continental Europe, Canada, the rest of the United States, Asia or Australasia competes against the counties of Ireland in any of the Gaelic games. Overseas county boards

Notes

References

{{Gaelic Athletic Association

County A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposes Chambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...

County boards

County teams

Overseas county boards

See also

Notes

References