Dunnes Stores Workers Against Apartheid

11 strikers who won a bigger victory than the right not to handle South African goods.

The struggle against the apartheid regime in South Africa reached the Dunnes Stores shop floor in 1984. Shop steward Karen Gearon passed a union instruction on to her colleagues not to handle South African goods. When 21-year-old Mary Manning refused to put some fruit through the till, she found herself suspended from work. Nine of her colleagues walked out in support of her, beginning a strike that would last for two years and nine months. The more the strikers learned about life in South Africa, the more determined they became not to give in.

This exhibition tells the story of the Dunnes Stores strike and how it changed the lives of those involved.

The accompanying photograph of strikers Michelle Gavin and Alma Russell was taken in 1984 outside Dunnes Stores in Henry St, Dublin.