Among the main attractions indicated on the official website of the Northern Ireland tourist board are historical places, excursions and golf courses, but also the studios of Game of Thrones, one of the most successful TV series of recent years. For some time there has been another series that has been helping to make Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom, known to a wider audience: it is Derry Girls, the Netflix series set in the late nineties which has for protagonists a group of girls and a boy who live in Londonderry, also called Derry, a Northern Irish city on the border with Ireland (an independent country that is part of the European Union).
Twenty-five years after the historic peace accords that marked the beginning of the end of the violence between the republicans, often Catholics and closer to Ireland, and the unionists, Protestants and in favor of belonging to the United Kingdom, which had characterized for 30 years local history, Derry Girls is only the latest of the TV series and films that are helping Northern Ireland to change its image and to revive tourism.
As Odhran Dunne, head of Derry’s tourism board, told National Geographic, until a few years ago Northern Ireland was seen more or less as “one of the top five places in the world not to go”. From the end of the 1960s to the 1990s, violence between unionists and republicans (at the time the minority) caused the death of 3,600 people, mostly civilians: the Good Friday Accords of 10 April 1998 finally established the mutual recognition of republican and unionists, even if from time to time clashes and tensions continued to re-emerge between the two communities.
In the last twenty-five years, however, Northern Ireland has tried to ensure that local tourism is not linked exclusively to places of conflict, focusing above all on its culture and on the other things it has to offer, including TV series.
In Derry, in fact, the walking tours that pass through the places seen in Derry Girls are having some success, which shows with a certain lightness the typical events of a common group of teenagers, inserted however in a context of great social violence. A mural in the city has been dedicated to the series, and an exhibition is also planned for this summer, of which some props have already been presented and will be exhibited: from the diary of Erin, one of the protagonists, to one of the sweaters worn by usually from his mother, Mary.
A mural dedicated to ‘Derry Girls’ in Derry
According to Belfast University researcher Alison Garden, Derry Girls helps to better understand what life was like for women and girls in a period that some historians have defined as “armed patriarchy”, and in a society that is still extremely conservative today . Among other things, the protagonists of the series are grappling with arguments with their parents, with the rigidities of the Catholic school they attend or with the shenanigans typical of their age, such as a secret trip to see Take That in Belfast (the boyband of the moment); however they also try to overcome the differences with the Protestant students and to get an idea of the evolution of the conflict in the city.
The series was created in 2018 by Derry screenwriter Lisa McGee and has received awards and positive comments all over the place. People interviewed by National Geographic in Northern Ireland said it was very popular, but it was also appreciated abroad, helping to bring Northern Ireland’s recent history to a wider audience. A few weeks ago two of the lead actresses of the series, Saoirse-Monica Jackson and Jamie-Lee O’Donnell (who play Erin and Michelle respectively) were also called as testimonials for an advertising campaign to encourage tourism in Ireland.
Speaking to National Geographic, Dunne said Derry Girls’ success is “a promotion dream” for the city in part in the way she talks about the locals, who she says are warm, outgoing and non-caring. too seriously, as seen in the series. “Five years ago we never imagined that something could happen that would have such an impact,” said Dunne: according to him, now foreign people who have never visited Ireland but are thinking of going “definitely” will also go to Derry.
Derry Girls isn’t the only TV series to have helped raise awareness of Northern Ireland in recent times. In fact, throughout the territory it is possible to visit about twenty places where the scenes of Game of Thrones are set, while in Banbridge, half an hour’s drive from Belfast, there are the film studios dedicated to the series, where it is possible to see sets, costumes and props, but also have interactive experiences.
Belfast, the capital, is also mentioned in the semi-autobiographical film of the same name by British actor and director Kenneth Branagh, which recounts the childhood of a child during the early stages of the Troubles in the city. The film is called Belfast and received seven Oscar nominations in 2022, winning the award for best original screenplay. In 2012, again in Belfast, a large complex dedicated to the Titanic was inaugurated, the ocean liner built right in the city and sunk in the Atlantic Ocean in April 1912, whose story is told in the famous film starring Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio.
Gerry Lennon, the head of the Belfast tourist board, recalled that until a few years ago the city was associated with places tormented by wars and social conflicts, such as Bosnia or Beirut (in Lebanon), while in some respects, according to him now it can “really compete” with cities like Barcelona or Berlin. Belfast’s goal is to double tourism-related revenue by 2030, explained Lennon, who considers it a phenomenon linked to “political, social and economic progress” in the city.
– Read also: What was Bloody Sunday, the 1972 massacre in Derry
