Derry Girls is fiction that shines a light on unspoken truths

The Channel 4 sitcom deals with serious subjects but is also genuinely hilarious, writes Laura Waddell

Watching the hit sitcom Derry Girls has taught me more about Northern Ireland in the 90s than years of history lessons in school, or since. A couple of years ago, I waited up til the small hours to discover with surprise that the Northern Irish election results weren’t to be fully televised. Through Brexit it has become apparent – to the rest of us, although unlikely to anyone from there – how poorly equipped many parliamentarians are to discuss the whole of the United Kingdom they cast votes on governing.

In too many debates and discussions of the proposed backstop, what’s revealed is a deeply superficial grasp. Not only in terms of hard facts and feasible stratigising, but in understanding the social and political factors that make avoiding a hard border with Ireland so crucial, instead of viewing it primarily as a thought exercise or inconvenient afterthought, discussed in a tone of abstraction like other Brexit-borne terminology. Although many discussions about Brexit, or complicated situations generally, can feel frustratingly shallow at the moment – we seem stuck in an era of discursive both sides-ism, and amidst the rolling coverage of Brexit, politicians battle to give the least mad soundbite of the day – the general ignorance around Northern Ireland is striking.

Having grown up in central Scotland, the everyday antics of the four girls of the show (and their tagalong ‘wee English fellow’ friend) don’t feel a million miles away. I recognise myself, and schoolfriends, in what they get up to in a way I rarely have on television. In books, the last time I felt that way was reading Alan Warner’s Sopranos, published

before the millennium and which I picked up a few years afterwards, roaringly accurate in its depiction of wild choir girls visiting Glasgow for a big show. It wouldn’t surprise me if some of the singers I shared lyrics sheets with are still banned from various concert halls of Scotland.

Derry Girls has smashed rating records in its setting of Northern Ireland and was Channel 4’s biggest comedy launch in over a decade, a staggering achievement particularly when straddling the shift to digital streaming. Its success is reminiscent of Wonder Woman becoming the highest grossing superhero film. Broadcasters as well as film studios seem to be waking up to an astronomical viewer appetite for shows fronted and created by women, and it’s worth noting the first time that a Northern Irish writer has ever won the Man Booker Prize was last year with Milkman by Anna Burns. It’s also about a teenager at odds with her curtain-twitching, pressurecooker-tense Northern Irish town at the time of the Troubles, finding survival strategies to preserve her individuality amidst intense domestic paranoia. With slow progress and ongoing resistance to women in art and media, it’s satisfying to think about record-breakers and prize-winners, but more so, that these stories are getting out there more visibly. Like Milkman, Derry Girls opens up our understanding of recent history through focusing on an under-appreciated perspective. We need all the understanding we can get.

Last year writer Lisa Mcgee said in an interview with The Pool, “You can write about young women and you can write about Derry and these places that maybe 10 years ago you couldn’t have. There seems to be a lot more possibility for telling those