The Young Citizen Volunteers is the youth section of the Ulster Volunteer Force, a paramilitary group. It is exclusively Protestant and advocates an extreme form of political unionism, and has often been accused of involvement in the drugs trade. Many of its members go on to join the UVF. Its inaugural meeting was held in Belfast City Hall on 10 September 1912, just prior to the signing of the Ulster Solemn League and Covenant (please see the Ulster Covenant). The objectives of the organisation were to attend weekly drills to learn "modified military and police drill, single stick, rifle and baton exercises, signalling, knot-tying and other such exercises". If possible members were also to gain some knowledge of "life-saving and ambulance work". The Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) is a loyalist paramilitary (terrorist) group in Northern Ireland. ... Protestantism is a general grouping of denominations within Christianity. ... In the Irish context, Unionists form a group of exclusively Protestant people in Ireland, of all social classes, who wish to see the continuation of the 1801 Act of Union, as amended by the Government of Ireland Act 1920, under which the Northern Ireland provincial state created in that latter... Belfast (Béal Feirste in Irish) is a city in the United Kingdom. ... Ulster (Irish: Cúige Uladh, IPA: ) is one of the four provinces of Ireland. ... The Covenanters, named after the Solemn League and Covenant, were a party that, originating in the Reformation movement, played an important part in the history of Scotland, and to a lesser extent in that of England, during the 17th century. ... The Ulster Covenant was signed by hundreds of thousands of men all over Ulster, Ireland, on and before September 28, 1912, in protest of a Home Rule bill introduced in that same year. ...

The constitution of the YCV insisted that members should not take part in any political meeting or demonstration. They were stated as being ‘non-sectarian and non-political’ and their objectives were considered to be : "... to develop the spirit of responsible citizenship and municipal patriotism by means of lectures and discussions on civic matters.... to cultivate, by means of modified military and police drill, a manly physique, with habits of self control, self-respect and chivalry....to assist as an organisation, when called upon, the civil power in the maintenance of peace". However it quickly dropped this stance and, along with the UVF, threatened to rebel against the government of the United Kingdom if the Home Rule Act of 1914 was implemented. Sectarianism (or sectism) is an adherence to a particular sect or party or denomination. ...

Membership was open to anyone aged between eighteen and thirty-five who was over five feet in height and could present "credentials of good character". In May 1914 with the gathering momentum of the Home Rule crisis and with many Young Citizens feeling betrayed by the British government the YCVs applied for membership of the UVF and became a battalion of that group's Belfast "regiment", going on to be part of the Royal Irish Rifles. Devolution or Home rule is the pooling of powers from central government to government at regional or local level. ... The United Kingdom is a unitary state and a democratic constitutional monarchy. ... The Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) is a Northern Ireland loyalist paramilitary group. ... The Regiment of the Infantry of the Line that became to be known as The Royal Ulster Rifles dates backs to the reign of King George III. In 1793 there was some expansion of the Armed Forces to meet the commitments of the war with France. ...

The YCV were re-established in the 1970's as the youth wing of the "new" UVF.

YCV crest commemorating their WW1 credentials

External Links

• History of the YCV
• History of the UVF