The Ulster Project was started in 1975 by Reverend Stephen Kent Jacobson of the Episcopal Church in the US and the Rev. Kerry Waterstone, a Church of Ireland priest in Tullamore, County Offaly, Republic of Ireland, in order to provide a safe place in the United States for teenagers from Northern Ireland to discuss the climate of "the Troubles" that was facing them at home. Its original success in Connecticut led rapidly to other member cities across the United States.