Special anniversary screening of Dunnes Stores strike film Blood Fruit announced for Nothing Compares event in Naas

A special screening of Blood Fruit, a film by Irish documentary maker Sinead O’Brien, has been announced as part of the Nothing Compares: A Celebration of Irish Women Artists series of events which are among the highlights of the upcoming Brigid 1500 celebrations. The Nothing Compares events, spanning eight days, from Saturday 27 January to Sunday 4 February, in four different Kildare towns, are being run by Hot Press, in association with Kildare County Council.

The dramatic, award-winning film will be shown in the beautiful St. David’s Church, a Church of Ireland church in the centre of Naas, Co. Kildare, on the evening of Brigid’s Day itself, Thursday 1st February at 7pm sharp. Sinead O’Brien will attend the screening and will be accompanied in a special Q&A afterwards by Mary Manning – the check-out worker who was just 21 years of age when she became the first Dunnes worker to refuse to handle South African food when it was presented to her at the checkout. The Q&A will be conducted by Hot Press film writer Roe McDermott. Complimentary tickets for the screening are available by applying below.

On the same evening, there will be food trucks and buskers in the nearby Potato Market, as well as a major concert in the Moat Theatre, starring Imelda May, HamsandwicH, Camille O’Sullivan, Niamh Regan, Nell Mescal and Roisin El Cherif, with Laura Whitmore as MC.

Blood Fruit tells the powerful story of the Dunnes Stores strike, which kicked off in 1984 – an extraordinary example of ordinary women taking a political and moral initiative that had far-reaching, positive consequences in helping to break the apartheid system in South Africa. The strike lasted three years, at a huge personal cost for those involved. But in the end the Irish government were forced to ban the import of South African goods – the first ever complete ban on goods exported from apartheid South Africa.

Blood Fruit won numerous awards and nominations, including Best Feature Documentary Galway Film Fleadh (Winner), Radharc Awards Best Documentary (Winner), IFTA George Morrison Best Feature Documentary (Nominated) and Prix Europa ‘IRIS’ Awards (Nominated).

A plaque, presented by South African President Thabo Mbeki commemorating the strike was unveiled in Dublin in 2008 and a street has been named after Mary Manning in Johannesburg, capital of South Africa.

Sinead O’Brien is a multi-award winning director, producer and non-fiction author with a career that has spanned over twenty years. During this time she has collaborated with Screen Ireland, BBC, Sky Arts, Northern Ireland Screen, RTE, Virgin Media, TG4, BAI and NRK on a range of documentary films. She directed the recent RTÉ documentary Sinéad, about Sinead O’Connor and has made award-winning documentaries about Luke Kelly and Brian Friel, among others. She is also the author of two critically acclaimed non-fiction books, Left For Dead (with Nick Ward) and Striking Back (with Mary Manning, also about the Dunne's Stores strike, and its aftermath).

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