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. 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 was to shape,
For the label clearly stated "Produce of the Cape".

"I can't check out your oranges, missus. 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 a system that denies black peoples' 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.

CHORUS: Dunnes Stores, Dunnes Stores, Dunnes Stores,
In St Bernard better value beats them all.

Her friends were all behind her and the union gave support,
And they called a strike and their 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 that just typical of apartheid's cruel law?
It's not just in South Africa the rich trample on the poor.
He wouldn't have a boycott. He couldn't give a tinker's curse.
Doesn't matter how he fills the shelves so long as he lines his purse. CHORUS

The messages came rolling in from all around the world
For such concern and sacrifice and for courage brave and bold.
When fourteen months were over, ten women and a man
Had helped to raise black consciousness all around the land.

Cleary's in O'Connell Street wouldn't sell South African shoes.
Bestman sent all their clothes back. Roche's stores sent back their booze.
Until all South African goods were taken off the shelves in Dunnes,
Mary Manning was down in Henry Street sticking to her guns. CHORUS