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THE YOUNG CITIZEN VOLUNTEERS

The Ulster Volunteer Force was a diverse and complex organisation, spanning rural and urban Protestant Ulster, stretching from isolated loyalist outposts on the Atlantic coast of Donegal to the shipyards communities of East Belfast in the Unionist heartland. One of the most dedicated groups of men, at first quite separate from the UVF, was the Young Citizen Volunteers of Ireland (YCVs)

The  inaugural meeting of this organisation had been held in Belfast Cit Hall on 10 September 1912, just prior to the fervent days of the Solemn League and Covenant; on the committee was Major Fred Crawford, and the president was Robert James McMordie, Lord Mayor of Belfast. Each member was to pay 2s. 6d. on joining the YCVs and a further 6d. each month: he was to attend weekly drills, there to learn modified military and police drill, single stick, rifle and baton exercises, signalling, knot-tying and other such exercises. If possible he was also to gain some knowledge of life saving and ambulance work.

The YCV movement was, perhaps, aiming to fill a gap left by the disbandment of the old militia and volunteers during Haldane’s army reforms of 1907-which had been designed to make the British military system more economical and efficient-and also to extend the highly successful strategies of the Scout and Boys Brigade movements to a somewhat older age group. The constitution of the YCVs insisted that members should not take part in any political meeting or demonstration. The organisation’s objectives were stated as being non-sectarian and non political and its objectives were considered to be the following

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, SWITH HABITS OF SELF CONTROL, SELF RESPECT AND CHIVALRY TO ASSIST AS AN ORGANISATION, WHEN CALLED UPON, THE CIVIL POWER IN THE MAINTENANCE OF THE PEACE.

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. There was little possibility, however that the aim included in the constitution that the YCVs should be non-sectarian and non-political could be realised, even from the outset. Some Catholics did indeed join, but the recruitment was overwhelmingly Protestant.The YCVs planned to extend their organisation further afield than Belfast, but growth was limited as a result of the financial  burden imposed by the organisation’s membership fee and the costly uniform.There would be few young men in the YCVs who did not have a reasonable remunerative job or come from a fairly comfortable background. The Belfast News-Letter of 11 September 1912 spoke in vivid terms of the enthusiastic launch of the organisation.To the sounds of a piper in picturesque Highland uniform, playing the bagpipes, some 2,000 young men turned up, eager for enrolment. The Lord Mayor told them that:

In times of difficulty men had to carry their guns while they followed the plough… the nation or the people that had lost the fighting instinct was sure to be swamped by others who possessed that instinct.

The secretary, F.T. Geddes, claimed that the organisation was unique and expressed the hope that the YCVs would be fostered by the government. The treasurer,Frank Workman, went on to compare the situation in contemporary Britain with that in Germany where

Men walked with military bearing through the streets of the towns because they had been drilled for at least years in connection with the Army

It would seem the formation of the Young Citizen Volunteers was a response to both the German threat and the Home Rule threat. On Tuesday 10 December a meeting of the YCVs was addressed by Francis Forth, principal of the Municipal Technical Institute of Belfast. He extolled, above all else, the well-ordered and intelligent discipline which expands the mind, exalts the faculties, refines the tastes, cultivates a spirit of patriotism… Quoting from John Stuart Blackie, Forth went on: Let the old Roman submission to authority be cultivated by all young men as a virtue at once most characteristically social, and most becoming in unripe years

Obedience, he claimed, was the link which tied everyone to their immediate superior in the pyramid of society, and sound discipline would be achieved not merely through self-discipline but through drills.

Several references in the lecture make evident an underline unease. There was a prolonged passage on the recent loss of the Titanic-itself a great blow to Belfast’s confidence- and to the way in which the city’s grief was softened by the knowledge that many on board showed great discipline in time of peril. The Young Citizen Volunteers must do the same. They must show self-sacrifice and courage in these difficult times. The speaker also dwelt at length on a painting by Sir Edward Poynter in which a Roman soldier was standing at his post whilst in the background Vesuvius erupted. Here, Forth declared was an example of real faith-fulness an courage to stir the YCVs. In the course of 1913 the gathering momentum of the Home Rule Crisis swept the YCVs into the arms of the Ulster Volunteer Force.

Many Young Citizens were having difficulty finding money for uniforms and were paying off  the costs in monthly instalments. An application for financial assistance in return for the placing of the YCVs at the Government’s disposal was refused. Absence of Government recognition for the force as a territorial unit proved hurtful, even if it were unsurprising in the circumstances. A large body of the YCVs advocated that they throw in their lot with the UVF which by April had guns and prestige. There was much soul searching within the YCVs and resignation from the movement. But by May 1914 the majority remaining had decided that their cause of defending the realm and that of the Ulster Protestants was one, even if the government of that realm seemed intent on breaking the Union. The YCVs applied for membership of the UVF and became a battalion of the Belfast Regiment. On Saturday 6 june the Young Citizens marched to the Balmoral Showgrounds with their new comrades, to be reviewed by Sir Edward Carson. A stream of people who had been thronging the Lisburn Road poured into the grounds when the gates opened at four o’clock , bathed in the warm afternoon sunshine. When the Young Citizens marched past at 4.45 a roar went up from the crowd of 25,000. Three local Belfast newspapers gave their unreserved support to the loyalist cause and its military arm, the UVF: the Belfast News-Letter, the Northern Whig and the Belfast Evening Telegraph. Of these three the Telegraph was the most stridently partisan; it endorsed the stand the YCVs had taken- Where indeed should they be, but with those  who stand for civil and religious freedom. Before lone the YCVs would have a chance to prove their military prowess in an arena far wider than that of Balmoral. The last hours of peacetime in Europe were swiftly ticking away.