The closing lines of the series finale of Derry Girls has been quoted during an event to mark the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement.
Two weeks ago, the milestone of the agreement that ended most of the violence of the Troubles in Northern Ireland was marked, with United States President Joe Biden also in attendance at some of the events.
A major development in the Northern Ireland peace process of the 1990s, it saw the establishment of the British–Irish Agreement between the British and Irish governments.
It was an event also explored in the third and final season of Derry Girls, which followed a group of teenage friends from Our Lady Immaculate College, a fictional girls’ Catholic secondary school in Derry living through the Troubles.
The finale episode showed the main characters voting in the 1998 referendum, with main character Erin (Saoirse-Monica Jackson) later speaking about the significance of what it signalled.
This week the episode was nominated in the Bafta’s Memorable Moment category but was also referenced by the head of the Northern Ireland Civil during a speech at the event at Queen’s University Belfast.
Closing a speech at the final day of a conference, Dr Jayne Brady said her visit to the mural depicting the characters of the TV series in Derry a few days earlier had brought back the words of Erin.
‘It made me think of the brilliant and very moving Agreement episode and something very poignant that Erin said [about how] “things can’t stay the same’.
‘And they shouldn’t,’ she quoted the character.
‘No matter how scary it is, we have to move on and we have to grow up because things, well, they might just change for the better”,’ she continued, as reported by The Independent.
When the finale aired in May last year, fans of the series applauded Lisa McGee’s show for wrapping up with the poignant episode, but also admitted it had taught them more about the Good Friday Agreement than they had ever learnt in school.
Others said it was the ‘most powerful and moving piece of television’ they had ever seen.
A few months later, Northern Ireland born actor Jamie Dornan admitted he ‘got emotional’ talking about the finale.
He said it had managed to ‘tackle the nuanced complications of being from this part of the world at that time with such integrity and such humour’.
He added it had been ‘incredible and so poignant’.
Derry Girls is streaming on All4.
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