Instead of the traditional rioting and sectarian clashes which typically accompanied the Orange Order parades, the strike leaders gave public speeches defending the workers' interests against all forms of sectarianism. On the Shankill Road, a Protestant area of the city and a regular scene of sectarian clashes, on 26 July 100,000 workers marched in support of the strike in a parade that featured flute bands from both Unionist and Nationalist traditions, a very rare occurrence. The parade ended at a mass rally held outside City Hall, where 200,000 demonstrators had gathered. Although it involved members of both the Protestant and Catholic communities, the Irish Unionist Alliance establishment opposed the strike and subjected Larkin to a sectarian campaign of condemnation, aimed largely at coaxing Protestant workers away from the strike. Larkin did however secure the support of the Independent Orange Order, an offshoot of the mainstream Orange Order which at the time had close ties to the Protestant labour movement. Larkin was joined in public meetings by the Independents' Grand Master, R. Lindsay Crawford. Crawford encouraged workers to stand firm for the sake not only of organised labour, but also of "the unity of all Irishmen". Police mutiny The police mutiny broke out when the RIC were ordered to play a more participative role during their routine escort of traction engines driven by blackleg carters through the city. Blackleg carters had been recruited to drive the traction engines that had been sent to Belfast to deliver the goods which had been unable to leave the port due to the striking carters. The traction engines, equipped with makeshift armour, were almost always blocked en route by flying pickets. The RIC were enlisted to provide an escort for the blackleg carters, who constantly came under attack. In one incident in East Belfast, a crowd of shipyard workers threw a telegraph pole at a blackleg carter and his traction engine. The merchandise he had been transporting ended up in the nearby Connswater River. The policemen, however, received no extra pay for the hazardous duty which left them vulnerable to attack nor for the regular breaking up of strikers' pickets; both of which threatened to alienate them from their own communities, and in some cases their own families. On 19 July, RIC Constable William Barrett refused to sit beside the blackleg driver of a traction engine who had been promised personal police protection by his