I Can't Stop Thinking About...Derry Girls

When I got to college, I learned something shocking: Most people aren’t Catholic.

Dismissing this understanding of the world as my own bias might be easy. After all, I was raised Catholic, so I was around other Catholics a lot. But my hometown was also nestled between two of the most Catholic areas of the country. We had not one, not two, but three Catholic churches in my town of 30 thousand people. Two of them were built within mere blocks of each other downtown; One to serve the French Canadians in the area and one to serve the Irish Catholics. 

While I never attended Catholic school (though many people did with the Catholic schools being some of the only private school options in the area), I grew up around a lot of people who were the same flavor of Catholic as me: Irish Catholic. Irish bread and corned beef on St. Patrick’s Day, no meat on Fridays, evenings spent in CCD, and a constant nagging feeling of guilt were all part of life.

It was a shock when I got to my secular liberal arts college in downtown Boston and had someone tell me most people weren’t Catholic and in fact, a lot of people didn’t like Catholics. But still, I didn’t really think about how being raised Catholic shaped my upbringing. Most of my friends in college were not super religious, so my upbringing didn’t stand out, especially against the background of an Irish Catholic city like Boston. 

When I moved to Connecticut after graduation, I broke out of my bubble. The towns I covered in lower Fairfield County had more Anglican churches than Catholic ones and I made friends with people for whom their religion was more than just a service they attended on holidays. I began to see how the rest of the country lived was different form me, but didn’t have a sense of what made my own upbringing unique.

That is until I watched “Derry Girls” recently.

“Derry Girls” is a British sitcom about a group of Catholic teens growing up at the end of The Troubles. While the historical events of the time are incorporated into the series, it’s mainly a comedic coming-of-age show. 

I’d never seen the quirks of my own upbringing reflected back to me in media until I watched “Derry Girls.” I was hooked from the second episode when the gang is trying not to get banned from the local fish and chips place because that’s what their families eats on Fridays (fish = ok on Fridays). That plot thread was familiar to me in a way I hadn’t seen on TV before. 

Throughout the series, there were also little things that resonated from the kids complaining about hating mass and their parent’s strict attitudes about sex. I also discovered from watching that my family, despite being several generations removed from Ireland, retains some Irish-ness. (It’s worth noting “Derry Girls” is one of the only media I’ve ever consumed featuring a character with my name.) 

I was telling my friends recently how I unironically love the quote from Vice President Kamala Harris about how we didn’t just fall out of a coconut tree but exist in the context of all that came before us. I think I love this because I spent a lot of my life thinking I fell out of a coconut tree. But Derry Girls made me realize that my upbringing, which I thought was the default, was shaped by the combo of my religion and heritage and the history behind both.

This is bittersweet as I don’t really identify as Catholic anymore because I disagree with some of the church’s stances. But I still acknowledge it as part of my background. I’m excited to get outta this coconut tree now and learn a bit more about the context in which I exist. And if someone 

I also can’t stop thinking about….

• “Rosemary: The Hidden Kennedy Daughter” by Kate Clifford Larson. The Kennedys have been in the news lately (I’m really interested in reading this new book on them) so I decided to pick up this book on Rosemary that’s been on my shelf for awhile. It’s a good primer on Irish Catholic life in Boston back in the day, but also oh my gosh, Joe Kennedy Sr. was terrible.

• “Stick Season (Forever).” Did you think I was going to write something without a Noah Kahan reference? Not after seeing him at Fenway! I know I wrote about “Stick Season” already, but the “Forever” version has since come out and seeing the album performed live was life-changing.

• “Zombie” by The Cranberries. Naturally, having watched “Derry Girls,” I’m getting into The Cranberries and only just realized this song is about The Troubles. Go figure!