Ulster Volunteers

Ulster Volunteer Force
Ulster Volunteers in Belfast, 1914
Leaders	Edward Carson James Craig
Dates of operation	13 January 1913 – 1 May 1919 (various units active since 1912) 25 June 1920 – early 1922
Headquarters	Belfast
Active regions	Ulster
Ideology	Ulster loyalism British unionism Opposition to Home Rule
Size	Exact size unknown, at least 100,000 in 1912
Part of	Military wing of the Ulster Unionist Council
Opponents	Irish nationalists (including Irish republicans) British government
Succeeded by Absorbed into the Ulster Special Constabulary

The Ulster Volunteers was an Irish unionist, loyalist paramilitary organisation founded in 1912 to block domestic self-government ("Home Rule") for Ireland, which was then part of the United Kingdom. The Ulster Volunteers were based in the northern province of Ulster. Many Ulster Protestants and Irish unionists feared being governed by a nationalist Catholic-majority parliament in Dublin and losing their links with Great Britain. In 1913, the militias were organised into the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and vowed to resist any attempts by the British Government to impose Home Rule on Ulster. Later that year, Irish nationalists formed a rival militia, the Irish Volunteers, to safeguard Home Rule. In April 1914, the UVF smuggled 25,000 rifles into Ulster from Imperial Germany. The Home Rule Crisis was interrupted by the First World War. Much of the UVF enlisted with the British Army's 36th (Ulster) Division and went to fight on the Western Front.

After the war, the British Government decided to partition Ireland into two self-governing regions: Northern Ireland (which overall had a Protestant/unionist majority) and Southern Ireland. However, by 1920 the Irish War of Independence was raging and the Irish Republican Army (IRA) was launching attacks on British forces in Ireland. In response, the UVF was revived. It was involved in some sectarian clashes and minor actions against the IRA. However, this revival was largely unsuccessful and the UVF was absorbed into the Ulster Special Constabulary (USC), the new reserve police force of Northern Ireland.

A loyalist paramilitary group calling itself the Ulster Volunteer Force was formed in 1966. It claims to be a direct descendant of the older organisation and uses the same logo, but there are no organisational links between the two.^[1]