Close your eyes and come with me back to 1984
We'll take a walk down Henry Street to Dunnes
Department store.
The supermarket's busy and the registers make a din'
The groceries go rolling out and the cash comes rolling in.
Mary Manning is at the checkout and she's trying to keep warm,
When a customer comes up to her with a basket on her arm
The contents of the basket Mary's future is to shape
But the label clearly stated "Produce Of The Cape"
I can't check out your oranges Mrs, now won't you bring them back.
For they come from South Africa, where White oppresses black
I'd have it on my conscience and I couldn't sleep at night
If I helped support the system that denies Black people's rights
Our union says "Don't Handle Them. It's the least that we can do.
We Fought oppression here for centuries, we'll help them fight it too"
The managers descended in an avalanche of suits
And Mary was suspended cos she wouldn't touch the fruits.
Dunnes Stores Dunnes Stores
Dunnes Stores with St Bernard Better Value Beats Them all
Well, her friends are all behind her and the union gave support
And they called a strike and the
Pickets brought all Dunnes' Stores to a halt
No one was going to tell the Boss what he bought or Sold
These women are only workers, they must do as they are told.
Isn't it just typical of a partite screwball law?
It's not just in South Africa, the Rich Temple and the poor.
He wouldn't have a boycott, he couldn't give a tinker's curse
Doesn't matter how he fills the shelves as long as he lines his Purse
The messages came rollin' in from all around the world
For such concern and sacrifice and for courage brave and bold.
When 14 months were over, 10 women and a man
Had helped to raise the consiousness all around the land.
Cleary's in O'Connell street wouldn't sell South African shoes.
Best Man sent all their clothes
Back, Roches Stores sent back their booze.
Until all South African goods were taken off the shelves in Dunnes.
And Mary Manning was down in Henry Street sticking to her guns