In 1948 following a general election the South African government passed a regime segregating black and whites known as apartheid. Nearly forty years later, Mary Manning a 21 year old check-out worker at Dunnes Stores in Henry Street in Dublin refused to register the sale of an Outspan grapefruit under a directive from her union in support of the anti-apartheid struggle. She and nine other workers (nine women and one man) who supported her action were suspended with immediate effect and so a strike ensued. Mary and her colleagues knew little or nothing about apartheid and assumed it would be a matter of days before they could return to work but the arrival on the picket line of Nimrod Sejake changed everything.

Within months Desmond Tutu, the United Nations, Jesse Jackson, Unions from all over the world, the South African government and the South African Police all embroiled themselves on opposing sides of this dispute. We will expose how opposition to this strike came from all quarters – including the Irish government, the Catholic Church and most astonishingly the Anti-Apartheid Movement revealing the bitter rivalry that escalated between all parties as the eyes of the world shone on these strikers in their fight against apartheid.