The hilarious Derry Girls perfectly captured the way teenagers – Catholic and Protestant

An ability to laugh at yourself was crucial when you were surrounded by so much horror

The hilarious Derry Girls perfectly captured the way teenagers – Catholic and Protestant – coped with the Troubles

I am sometimes asked what it was like growing up during the Troubles and I always say – despite the fact that my father, an RUC officer, was the victim of an IRA murder attempt, forcing us to move home – that I had a great childhood. I joined girl guides, I played hockey and badminton, I ran about with my mates and I had as normal a time as possible.

Of course, the awfulness was never too far away. I remember singing I’m In The Mood For Dancing by the Nolans with my friend on the way home from school, as we often did, when we got the news that one of our friends’ fathers had been shot dead by the IRA. But you could not live your life focusing on the horror and we spent most of our time doing normal teenage things.

That is why I am such a big fan of Derry Girls, the Channel 4 sitcom about five teenagers growing up in the Maiden City between 1994 and 1998, which finally came to an end this week after three fabulous series. Lisa McGee, the writer, captured that juxtaposition perfectly.

The show wasn’t without fault. Some of the celebrity cameos in the third series – from Liam Neeson as an authoritarian RUC officer to Chelsea Clinton (who received a letter from the Derry girls in the finale) – felt a wee bit forced. And, at times, there was a bit of “Prod bashing” – after all, the series was written from the point of view of Catholic teenagers from the Bogside in “Derry”, not Prods from the Shankill or Sandy Row. But, most of the time the comedy and the outlandish plots made it easy to get past that.

My favourite episode is still from series one, where pupils from Catholic and Protestant schools are brought together on a “Retreat” and Father Peter encourages them to talk about the similarities between the two communities. A blackboard is produced and a line drawn down the middle, with one side for similarities and one for differences. Of course they end up talking about their differences and that side of the blackboard fills up.

As someone who grew up in the 1970s and 80s, I find it hilarious because it is so close to the truth – young people picking up stereotypes, such as: “Protestants keep their toasters in a cupboard”, and “Catholics like statutes but Protestants like marching!”

Typically for Derry Girls, the scene finds a clever way to laugh at a serious issue. The truth is, Northern Ireland’s communities have struggled to understand each other for years. I wish there was more appreciation and understanding of difference. It should be something we enjoy learning about and celebrate, and the introduction of education for mutual understanding in our schools has improved matters. But we are not there yet! The blackboard, by the way, is now so iconic that visitors can view it in the Ulster Museum in Belfast.

But it is the way the series captured the ordinary lives and the angst of teenage girls – the dreams, the relationships, the parents (!) – and combined that with the quite extraordinary circumstances that people found themselves in across Northern Ireland at that time that really was its greatest achievement.

Putting on a talent show at school whilst your parents are watching a news report of a fatal bombing; planning your 18th in a church hall whilst the Belfast Agreement is being negotiated; travelling to Portrush on the train for the day and bumping into your mother’s friend who has just got out of prison.

I remember that contrast very well, (well not the prison bit!). I was Erin, Orla, Clare and Michelle’s age in the decade before Derry Girls – the brilliant 1980s. Whilst the programme’s characters live in an urban setting, I was brought up in rural Fermanagh. But just as the Derry girls got through the Troubles by focusing on other things – the Prom, the school newspaper, Fat Boy Slim doing a gig in the city – somehow my generation got through as well.

And, like them, it was our ability to laugh at ourselves despite the horror of the past and what it meant for so many families, that was at the heart of our survival – whether you were a Derry girl or a country chick.

Arlene Foster is a former first minister of Northern Ireland and a presenter on GB News