After four years of jokes, memes, acclaim, and debate about whether Protestants really do keep toasters in cupboards, the imminent final season of Derry Girls is prompting bittersweet valediction in Derry.
The Channel 4 TV sitcom that became an unexpected global hit after airing in 2018 cast a warm haze over Northern Ireland’s second city that inhabitants hope will linger beyond the third season, which starts next week.
The show’s wry depiction of working-class teenage girls coming of age in the 1990s reshaped perceptions of a city previously associated with the turmoil of the Troubles. It was not just outsiders who saw a different Derry – inhabitants viewed themselves differently. They hope the afterglow endures.
“It’s the light that it brings. It’s Derry in colour, not in black and white,” said Greta McTague, a drama teacher at St Cecilia’s college who taught two of the show’s stars, Saoirse-Monica Jackson, who plays Erin, and Jamie-Lee O’Donnell, who plays Michelle.
A city previously best known for Bloody Sunday, and often overshadowed by Belfast, was able to show a vibrant, joyous side, said McTague. “Derry Girls has put us right up there on the map. It has made this massive impact. It will leave a lasting legacy.”
The sitcom found a global audience after Netflix acquired the rights. It was referenced on The Simpsons, which featured an ice-cream parlour named Dairy Girls. Some fans this week half-jokingly urged the Stormont executive to buy Channel 4, which faces being privatised, for its services to Northern Ireland.
The show’s gentle mockery of sectarianism included a blackboard that characters used to list differences between Catholics and Protestants, with the former deemed to love statues and store coal in the bath and the latter deemed to love flutes and keep toasters in cupboards. The Ulster Museum in Belfast included the prop in an exhibition on cultural stereotypes.
Tourists visit Derry to walk the same streets as the characters, devour Derry Girls-themed afternoon teas and take selfies at a mural on the side of Badgers Bar on Orchard Street. “Netflix has given us a global platform. It has given us a new market and a new audience,” said Odhran Dunne, the chief executive of the tourism agency Visit Derry. “The new series will open another opportunity for sites and locations.”
Gleann Doherty, a guide who does a Derry Girls tour, said in 2018 he had initially expected the show to be a bleak take on the Troubles. “I thought here we go, another one. Then I sat down and watched it and it was hilarious. It shows you that there was a sense of normality. It wasn’t a normal society that we lived in but it felt normal to us.”
Karl Porter, one of the artists who painted the mural, said the show captured inhabitants’ resilience and humour. “When you laugh about something it takes on a whole different context. Bad stuff happened … but we built these very strong communities.” Porter lamented the end of Derry Girls but said it was going out on a high. “They’re not dragging it out. We’ve all seen certain shows that went on and on and became repetitive.”
The mural was tweaked this week so that Michelle, who originally held up two fingers in the peace sign, held up three to signify the third series. The show’s writer and creator, Lisa McGee, and cast and crew returned to Derry on Thursday night for a red carpet premiere of the new season’s first two episodes followed by a reception at the Guildhall.
Derry Girls had demystified her home town to outsiders, McGee told the Guardian. “Something about comedy makes things accessible to people. It’s shown a side of the place that has not been shown an awful lot, for instance the more ridiculous elements of day to day life. It’s maybe changed the city a wee bit. It’s incredible really because it’s just a comedy.” McGee wants fresh stories to emerge. “I hope that will be the legacy of Derry Girls, that other people will write about here.”
Juliette Barber, a teacher at St Cecilia’s college, said seeing two former pupils find fame and success as actors on the show had galvanised her students. “It puts their aspirations within reach. It’s no longer something that happens to ‘other people’, it has happened to someone who wore their uniform, walked their streets, and talks the way they do.”
