Farewell to “Derry Girls”, a masterful comedy about the Troubles

As northern ireland’s national museum, the Ulster Museum is home to a diverse range of items, including archaeological artefacts from the time of St Patrick, a skeleton of the extinct Irish elk, jewellery from the Spanish Armada and paintings by Sir John Lavery. In 2020 another object joined the displays: a blackboard on which are scrawled alleged differences between Protestants and Catholics.

The new exhibit is a recreation of the most famous prop in “Derry Girls”, a masterful comedy which broadcasts its final episode on May 18th. The teen sitcom has explained Northern Ireland to the world, and to itself. It is set in the 1990s, during the final weary years of a 30-year sectarian conflict known as the Troubles in which 3,500 people were killed. But the four schoolgirls at the heart of “Derry Girls” have more immediate concerns—exams, boys, parents and rebellion. Lauded by critics and audiences, “Derry Girls” has already joined Van Morrison, Snow Patrol and Seamus Heaney in the list of tiny Northern Ireland’s cultural ambassadors.