Ireland, like other European countries, witnessed the rise of ‘pseudo-military’ youth groups in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. These organizations were not only a manifestation of the cult of discipline, training and manliness that grew out of the anxiety about the coming war, but also, perhaps, a reaction to a widely perceived fin-de-siècle ‘decadence’ (Fitzpatrick, 1996: 382-3). In the early years of the twentieth century, many Germans worried that ‘middle-class boys were effeminate’ and ‘the country lacked virile soldiers’ (Donson, 2010: 49). Similarly, the British army’s poor performance against a force of South African farmers during the Boer War (1899-1902) had provoked much concern that Britain was in a state of decline. Fearing that they were losing their competitive edge in industrial and military affairs and that their populations were deteriorating both physically and morally, western countries like Germany and Britain began to concern themselves with the health, education and moral welfare of the new generation (Heywood, 2005: 29-30). The establishment of uniformed youth groups was one way of dealing with the perceived problem.