The Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) later mutinied when ordered to escort the blackleg drivers of traction engines used to replace the striking carters.

Former Irish Labour Party leader Ruairi Quinn described the Belfast strike as having been a "major event in the early years of the trade union movement".

[1] Belfast in the early 20th-century was a flourishing centre of industry with shipbuilding, engineering and linen-manufacturing the main sources of the city's economic lifeblood.

Its skilled workforce of shipyard workers and engineers earned wages and enjoyed working conditions comparable with the rest of the United Kingdom.

[2] Whilst Protestants and Catholics held the same jobs, the sectarian attitudes which dominated every aspect of life in Belfast ensured that Protestant dockers worked in the cross-channel docks where employment was more regular whilst Catholic dockers were made to work in the more dangerous deep sea docks, where the casualty rate was the highest.

Author John Gray in his book, City in Revolt: James Larkin and the Belfast Dock Strike of 1907 described the differences in wages earnings and the standard of living between the skilled and unskilled workers as "a yawning abyss, unequalled anywhere else in the United Kingdom".

Although Kelly gave in and recognised his workers' rights to union membership, when Gallaher sacked seven women for attending a meeting held by Larkin, one thousand female employees of his tobacco factory walked out of their workplace in a display of solidarity on 16 May.

Thomas Gallaher refused to recognise the NUDL and had hundreds of blackleg dockers working on Donegall Quay under the protection of the RIC and troops deployed by Belfast's Lord Mayor Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 9th Earl of Shaftesbury.

The NUDL demanded an increase in wages along with union recognition and better working conditions, all of which Gallaher and the other shipping bosses adamantly refused to grant.

On 1 July, Larkin decided to lead the striking dockers in a march to Belfast City Hall to put their case before the council chamber who were in session.

According to a newspaper report, the dockers were "marshalled in a long column of fours, and headed by Mr. Larkin they marched in military order through the streets gathering an immense crowd at their heels".

On 4 July after submitting a general pay claim, Larkin called the thousand remaining carters of Belfast, who were employed by the 60 firms of the Master Carriers Association, out on a sympathy strike.

[8] 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.

[13] 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.

[3] 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 employer.

They refused to offer any protection to the blacklegs, made no further attempts to disperse the strikers' pickets and Larkin persuaded them to carry out their own strike for higher wages and better pensions.

[16] The day after Barrett's dismissal, the strikers carried him from one police barracks to another; a mass demonstration followed where he addressed a crowd of 5,000 people, mainly striking workers.

Sexton found the 10 shillings a week strike payments that had to be made to the dockers crippling high and, fearing that the union might be bankrupted, negotiated with the employers before agreeing to terms that amounted to capitulation by the NUDL.

[11] In the weeks leading up to the strike's termination, the Unionist press had begun to employ scare-mongering and other divisive methods to alienate the Protestant strikers from their Catholic counterparts by alluding to Irish nationalism and socialism.

[18] This also helped to ensure a significant increase in trade union membership amongst northern Catholics, who before the strike had tended to be less unionised than their Protestant counterparts.

[20] He would move south the following year and found that the authorities were frequently loath to confront him, given his tough reputation and the spectre of the police mutiny that had accompanied the Belfast strike.

The industrial action attracted much attention, including that of John Maclean, a Scottish Marxist who came to prominence as a leader of the Red Clydeside group.

Maclean was impressed by what he saw in Belfast, feeling that the strike would represent the moment in which sectarian divisions were put aside in favour of working class unity in Ireland.

[24] Former Irish Labour Party leader Ruairi Quinn described the Belfast Dock strike as having been a "major event in the early years of the trade union movement".

[1] To commemorate the 100th anniversary of the event, a stained glass window depicting the dock strike was unveiled at Belfast City Hall by the Lord Mayor, Pat McCarthy.