Orange Volunteers

Orange Volunteers Orange Volunteer Force
Orange Volunteers logo. The motto translates as "Fortune favours the bold"
Leader(s)	Clifford Peeples (until 2001)
Dates of operation	July 1998 – present
Active region(s)	Northern Ireland
Ideology	Ulster loyalism Protestant fundamentalism Anti-Catholicism
Status	active
Size	less than 25 members

The Orange Volunteers (OV) or Orange Volunteer Force (OVF) is a small Ulster loyalist paramilitary group in Northern Ireland. It was formed in 1998 by loyalists who opposed the Belfast Agreement and the loyalist ceasefires. Over the following year it carried out a wave of bomb and gun attacks on Catholics and Catholic-owned property in rural areas, but since 2000 has been relatively inactive. The group has been associated with elements of the Orange Order and has a Protestant fundamentalist ideology. Its original leader was Pastor Clifford Peeples. The OV are a Proscribed Organisation in the United Kingdom under the Terrorism Act 2000.

The OV emerged during the 1998 Drumcree conflict when the Royal Ulster Constabulary and British Army prevented members of the Portadown Orange Order and their supporters from returning to the town centre down the Garvaghy road. However, there is evidence to suggest that they had been actively recruiting and training members since as early as 1985. The group is believed to be made up of dissident loyalists who disapprove of the Northern Ireland peace process and also of the more militant members of the Orange Order, including former members of the Loyalist Volunteer Force and Ulster Defence Association.David Ervine, at the time a leading member of the Progressive Unionist Party, described the group as little more than a gang of Protestant fundamentalists and drug-dealers.