This film screened on Sunday 5th July 2015.

Ireland on Sunday is our monthly showcase for new Irish film.

We are delighted to welcome strikers Mary Manning and Cathryn O’Reilly who will take part in a post-screening Q&A.

Reminding us that the current employment difficulties faced by Dunnes Stores workers are not without precedent, Blood Fruit takes us back to 1984,the height of the apartheid regime in South Africa, when Mary Manning, a 21-year-old Dunnes Stores checkout girl, refused to sell Outspan grapefruits under direction from her union in support of the anti-apartheid struggle. She and ten other supporters were suspended and a strike ensued.

Sinead O’Brien reconstructs the story of their struggle, interviewing the strikers, their employers and their admirers (Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Jesse Jackson and Nelson Mandela) and reminding us that ordinary people can, with determination and integrity, achieve extraordinary results.