The Derry Girls are back. About 40 of them, to be precise, all queuing outside the Omniplex cinema on the city’s Strand Road in the hope of catching a glimpse of their idols ahead of the hit show’s season three premiere on Thursday evening.
Eight-year-old Faela Murphy is in the middle of explaining why Orla is her favourite character – “because she’s funny and silly in a funny way” – when Jamie-Lee O’Donnell arrives. She gasps, an expression of surprise and delight on her face: “We saw her!”
“Hello, hello, how are you?” says O’Donnell, who plays Michelle in the series; she stops and poses for photographs, putting her arms round the children and waving with them at the camera.
“She just loves Derry Girls,” says Faela’s mother, Julie. “They’re just so Derry. You can’t go anywhere now without being asked if you’re a Derry girl – you’re constantly asked, is that how you go on?
“They’re exactly how we went on at school,” says her friend, Gillian Saunders. “We’re all Derry Girls now.”
Catherine Furey is trying to catch a glimpse of Saoirse-Monica Jackson, who plays Erin in the series.
“We were at school together and I’m trying to get a wee video for my brother, who lives in Helsinki, he loves it and he’ll be buzzing. It’s great to see the real Derry humour coming out in it – no matter where you go now, people hear our accents and they go, y‘ou’re from Derry’, because they know it from the TV. It’s about time.”
‘Such fans’
Stephen Wilson has his own Derry Girls with him – daughters Mollie, Katie and Sophie. Mollie shows off her Derry Girls dance: “We already got our pictures taken with Erin and Michelle,” she explains. The girls are such fans, they went to see the show while it was filming in Derry. “They know they’re from Derry and they’re famous,” says their father. “It’s great – everybody knows Derry because of this.”
Inside the cinema the Derry Girls are everywhere. Photographers are arranged in a semicircle in front of a giant Derry Girls backdrop, taking snap after snap; beside them, journalists queue to interview the actors and its creator, Lisa McGee, while those lucky enough to be on the guest list stand around hoping for a glimpse of the stars. Among those watching is Brendan McDaid, editor of the Derry Journal, which made its own cameo in the series, in season one. “They asked us first...of course we were delighted we were in it.
“It told a different story of Derry – it doesn’t sanitise life here, or shy away from the Trouble or the difficult issues people were facing at the time, but it’s also a celebration of the city and its people. Derry is very proud of it.”
‘It’s the humour’
As the crowd begins to file into the cinema, the photographers are still hard at work – this time, taking a snap of the DUP MP Gregory Campbell. “I just went up Pump Street and turned right,” he jokes, referring to a line from the show.
Though he is not keen on the title – “bit of a mistake there”, he says, describing how he was sent a doctored image with him as the “wee English fella” under the title “Londonderry Girls”. When asked if he is a fan, he replies, “of course”.
“It’s the humour. I wasn’t going to watch it but once I started, that was it.”
Another DUP colleague, the mayor of Derry, Graham Warke, is also a convert. “Derry Girls has shown people what we are truly like – our sense of humour, our warmth, our personality.”
He is one of many who emphasise the economic benefits the show has brought Derry. “In the last four weeks we’ve had so many American tourists here, thanks to Netflix – it’s really opened up the American market, and we hope that will continue,” he says. This is echoed by the chief executive of Visit Derry, Odhran Dunne.
“The Netflix pick-up, especially during the pandemic, has given us international coverage, especially in America, but we’re also seeing visitors from all over the globe who have watched the series and are fascinated by it and now feel connected to the place.
“It’s the sort of global exposure we could only dream of, but we’ve seen what Game of Thrones tourism has done for Northern Ireland, now we have our own little bit of screen tourism thanks to Derry Girls.”
