The writer Eli Davies makes it clear how such stories are “ often flattened out by mainstream conflict narratives”. We don’t often hear about daily life for girls and women during this period. Derry Girls showed us what life was like for one of society’s most marginalised groups in a time and place some academics have described as an “ an armed patriarchy”. Narratives about Northern Ireland, and especially the conflict euphemistically known as “ the Troubles”, focus overwhelmingly on men. The fears of the four girls – mouthy Michelle, stressed-out Erin, eccentric Orla and anxiety-ridden Clare – were played for humour, but the challenges facing them were real and serious. Lisa McGee’s riotous Derry Girls, back for its final season, distilled the power of this hilarious drama in just 10 seconds of dialogue. In between newsflashes and 90s dance hits, 16-year old Clare nervously explains just what is at stake and why these results are so vitally important: “We’re girls, we’re poor, we’re from Northern Ireland and we’re Catholic!” (File Photo: a summer evening in Derry in 1997, the night before four teenage girls and a wee English fella get their GCSE results. Derry Girls gloriously upended these conventions by putting Northern Irish girls firmly centre stage.
