Ulster Volunteer Force

The Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) is a Loyalist paramilitary organization that has carried out numerous bombings and assassinations in an attempt to ensure continued rule by the Protestant majority in Northern Ireland.

Since the late 1960s in Northern Ireland, Roman Catholics (also called Republicans or Nationalists) and Protestants (also Loyalists or Unionists) have been battling over control of the region. Catholics wish Northern Ireland to become a part of the Republic of Ireland, and Protestants wish it to remain part of Great Britain. Paramilitary organizations have formed within each group—both employing violence to achieve their ends.

The UVF takes its name from a private army set up in 1912 by Sir Edward Carson. The modern UVF was re-founded in 1966 by Andrew Spence and several friends who feared that the paramilitary Nationalist group Irish Republican Army (IRA) was again becoming active in Northern Ireland. (The ...