Irish Volunteers, the (1913), a paramilitary organization, formed in November 1913 and inspired by the formation of the Ulster Volunteer Force in the previous January to prevent, militarily, the imposition of Home Rule on Ulster. The Irish Volunteers were organized by a steering committee headed by Eoin MacNeill and Patrick Pearse, representing all shades of nationalist opinion, and were reluctantly supported by John Redmond. After the outbreak of war in 1914, the organization split on Redmond's call for enlistment in the British army with the anti-Redmondites providing the force [see IRA] that would carry out the Easter Rising.

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