Derry Girls creator awarded prestigious literary peace prize

Derry Girls creator and writer Lisa McGee has said it is a privilege to have been awarded a prize for the show’s finale.

She has received the £7,500 Christopher Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize which recognises work promoting peace and reconciliation from Line of Duty actor Adrian Dunbar

The award was founded in memory of the British Ambassador to Ireland who was murdered by the Provisional IRA in 1976.

Accepting the award, Ms McGee said: “It was a privilege to write this show, it is a privilege to accept this award.

“It means the world to me and to the Derry Girls team but more importantly it is something that has finally impressed my parents,” she said.

The Derry-born writer received the award on Tuesday at the Irish Embassy in London.

The multi-award winning writer said growing up in Derry she sensed she was from a “complicated place”.

“But I also knew we were so much more than the image that was so often reflected back to us,” she said.

“We were a place full of colour and character and joy….. all we wanted to do was put that on screen and we also wanted to make people laugh,” she said.

“Laughter helps us through the toughest of challenges.”

The Bafta and international Emmy winning series was first broadcast in 2018 and ran for three seasons before finishing in 2022.

Based around Derry Girls characters Erin, Michelle, Clare and Orla, plus “the wee English fella” James, the show was about the everyday life of a group of teenagers set against the backdrop of the Troubles in the North of Ireland.

It is the show’ s final episode – focused on the North of Ireland preparing to vote on the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 – which was recognised by the Christopher Ewart-Biggs judges.

The episode “approached the underlying questions of prejudice, antagonism, cultural division and violence with unique humour,” judge Prof Roy Foster said.

It had “empathy and verve, illuminating the decision to endorse the Good Friday Agreement, and linking it to a generation coming of age at a moment of hope,” he added.

In 2022, Lisa McGee was awarded the freedom of Derry City and Strabane District Council, becoming the first ever female recipient of the council’s highest honour.

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