Ulster Service Corps

The Ulster Service Corps (USC) was a loyalist vigilante group with a paramilitary structure active in Northern Ireland in the late 1970s. Although short-lived it briefly had a sizeable membership. One of a number of small independent loyalist paramilitary groups active in the mid 1970s, alongside the Orange Volunteers, Ulster Volunteer Service Corps, Down Orange Welfare and the Ulster Special Constabulary Association (USCA), the USC was the largest of these minor groups.

Made up of former members of the Ulster Special Constabulary it retained much of that organisation's structure and enjoyed strong support in some rural areas of Northern Ireland. Most of those who established the group had been members of the USCA, which had disbanded around a year before the establishment of the USC.

The group was established in 1976 by the United Unionist Action Council, a sub-committee of the United Ulster Unionist Council (UUUC). It had links to the Orange Order and held meetings at Orange halls but the Order decided against establishing any formal links with the USC, instead continuing to encourage its members to join the official security forces rather than vigilante groups.

During early 1977 it set up roadblocks in parts of County Londonderry, County Armagh and County Tyrone and also claimed to have spent time observing Provisional Irish Republican Army "safe houses" in order to collect data on them. During its roadblocks and related patrols some members of the USC carried guns, although these were generally legally held firearms. During a speech in the House of Commons Ian Paisley even claimed that he had participated in these patrols and both he and Ernest Baird promoted the USC and encouraged their supporters to seek membership of the group. Baird hoped that he could use the USC as his private army in the event of civil unrest resulting from the UUAC strike of 1977.

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