Violent clashes occurred between Orangemen and British security forces at Drumcree last night, with missiles, fire-crackers and blast-bombs being thrown at police.
The RUC last night confirmed that three officers suffered shrapnel injuries from one of two blastbombs. One was taken from the field in an army ambulance after receiving leg injuries. An RUC spokesman said the injuries were not life-threatening. The two other officers were treated in a small field hospital set up by the army.
The RUC also confirmed that during the day members of the Loyalist Volunteer Force, the outlawed dissident loyalist faction, which is mainly based in and around Portadown, had been mingling in the crowd.
At least three other officers were injured, apparently by missiles hurled by the protesters.
The second blast-bomb, a form of improvised grenade, was thrown by loyalist protesters around midnight. About 30 minutes later considerable RUC reinforcements were sent to the scene. However, by then there appeared to be a lull in the attacks from rioters who had crossed the ditch in front of the three lines of razor wire erected by the army.
By 1 a.m. the rioting appeared to be dying down, with large numbers of cars leaving the fields. Shortly afterwards, the RUC began firing increasing numbers of plastic bullets at the rioters who had crossed the ditch to the first line of wire. One or two rioters were seen to stumble and fall.
During the night the protesters shone their own spotlights on the police ranks, apparently to help rioters armed with a variety of missiles from stones to crossbow arrows to target the security forces. A small number of plastic bullets were fired by the police in response.
British army reinforcements began arriving after 10 p.m. to reinforce the lines of police facing the protesters in the fields beneath the church. One of the Drumcree organisers said that 20,000 protesters were expected. Although there was no way of gauging numbers, there was certainly many thousands in the fields by darkness.
It was the turn of Orangemen from Co Antrim to bolster the numbers and marchers poured into the field for almost two hours.
A spokesman for the RUC described the scene as "basically, a legal protest but with lawbreakers".
The dissident Ulster Unionist MP Mr Jeffrey Donaldson and a DUP member of the Assembly, Mr Gregory Campbell, were among the protesters but no other prominent unionist figures appeared last night.