The
Larne gun-running was a major gun smuggling operation organised in April 1914 in
Ireland by Major
Frederick H. Crawford and Captain
Wilfrid Spender for the
Ulster Unionist Council to equip the
Ulster Volunteer Force. The operation involved the smuggling of almost 25,000 rifles and between 3 and 5 million rounds of ammunition from the
German Empire, with the shipments landing in
Larne,
Donaghadee, and
Bangor in the early hours between Friday 24 and Saturday 25 April 1914. The Larne gun-running may have been the first time in history that motor-vehicles were used "on a large scale for a military-purpose, and with striking success".