Only on the hit show “Derry Girls” would you see military patrol trucks and historic city walls while listening to the Irish rock band, The Cranberries.
As seen on Channel 4 and Netflix, “Derry Girls” is a coming-of-age comedy set in the middle of a paramilitary conflict in Northern Ireland. But despite its violent setting, the show focuses on friendship and growing up. The season finale premiered internationally on Netflix in October.
The show follows the lives of Erin, Orla, Claire and Michelle, four Irish Catholic teens, and James, a wee English fella who just moved in with his cousin Michelle after being abandoned by his mother. They live in Northern Ireland in a place called Derry, or Londonderry depending on your persuasion.
The show starts with armed military officials guarding the streets and people painting political messages on the streets. Somewhere else in the city, five teenagers are getting ready for the first day of school. Throughout the course of the three seasons, they argue with their parents, have feuds with classmates, get detention and live their regular teen lives.
Oh, and the guerrilla-like conflict that’s occurring in their hometown? They have bigger problems.
You see, the thing about Derry is that, at the time of the show in the 1990s, residents were living through a conflict called “The Troubles.”
The Troubles were a nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland between paramilitary groups of mostly Catholic members who wanted Northern Ireland to separate from the United Kingdom and join a United Ireland, and mostly Protestant groups, who disfavored joining Ireland and wanted to remain part of the United Kingdom. It is estimated that over 3,600 people died as a result. The conflict started in the 1960s and lasted until The Good Friday Agreement in 1998. Among many things, it was agreed that Northern Ireland would remain a part of the U.K., but this could change if the majority of the residents chose to be part of the Republic of Ireland.
But the show isn’t about the deaths, the bombs or any of the violence. It’s about friendship, being a teenager and growing up.
Despite the clear violence around them, the show focuses on their lives: they go to school, they have crushes on people and they feel anxious about exams.
Their adventures — and misadventures — throughout the series include sneaking into school to see their test results and ending up in police custody, convincing a hot priest that a statue of the Virgin Mary cried real tears (spoiler: it was dog piss) and sneaking out to a concert and running into a polar bear. You get the idea.
But whether it’s a regular day at their all-girls Catholic school (James is the only boy in the school as there were concerns about his safety in the all-boys school because he is English), or one of their more unique experiences, the violence in the background remains exactly there – in the background.
With this, the show stays true to the comedic, coming-of-age story of friendship that it wants to be.
In fact, the show portrays the type of friendship that we all wish we had: loyal and true. Despite their disagreements, flaws and ill decisions, the characters always find a way to stay true to each other. In the first season, when other students were making fun of Orla’s talent show performance, the rest of the group put their fight aside to join her on stage, following her choreography. In season three, when the group got the opportunity to meet the “modern-day Beethoven,” Fatboy Slim, they let go of their chance to look after a girl that Claire had a crush on. And in the second season when James’ mom comes back to take him back to England… well, you should see it for yourself.
Despite the excellence of these warmhearted scenes, what “Derry Girls” does best is the portrayal of what growing up in a violent country is like. Most of the people who live in real-life conflicts are not activist leaders or faces of a rebellion, but they will have to live with it and they learn how to deal with it.
And sometimes the best way to deal with it is to not deal with it at all.
Derry Girls is set during The Troubles, but it is not about The Troubles. Instead of focusing on the politics and the controversy, the show illustrates the conflict as simply existing within this context, which makes it more real. Among the violence and fights, the Derry Girls have to grow up, so they do.
It’s not that they never address the conflicts, they do, but it is usually reserved for everyday conversation or with jokes. For example, in the first episode, when the family found out that there’s a bomb on the bridge it simply means the bus will have to take the long road to get to school. For Orla’s mom, it also means a bigger complication: she can’t cross the bridge and make it to her tanning salon appointment.
The season finale is the only episode where the show goes in-depth on the conflict and its cost, the girls turning 18 and the decision all the characters have to make on whether to vote “yes” on the Good Friday Agreement. It is also the only episode in the series that is not a comedy.
The episode featured serious conversations, moral conflicts and the possible fallout of the agreement.
But the characters don’t yet know what we as an audience do: In 1998, shortly before the Derry Girls would go to university, the Good Friday referendum passed with over 71% of the votes. Northern Ireland voted “yes” for peace.
“There’s a part of me that doesn’t really want to grow up. I’m not sure I’m ready for it, I’m not sure I’m ready for the world. But things can’t stay the same, and they shouldn’t,” said Erin at the end of the series finale. “No matter how scary it is we have to move on and we have to grow up because things, well they might just change for the better.”
In the end, James, the girls and their families are seen leaving the voting polls, with Erin’s little sister, Anna, jumping behind them, holding Grandpa Joe’s hand. Most of the characters had lived in conflict for most or all of their lives but Anna would grow up in peace.