Derry Girls celebrates 5 cracker years since it aired on our screens

Derry Girls premiered on January 4, 2018, launching what would become the most iconic series about the city and catapulting Derry onto the world stage.

The fifth anniversary of the hit Channel 4 show was marked on Wednesday by the station where it first debuted and continued to premiere.

Lisa McGee, the creator of Derry Girls, responded to Channel 4’s tweet on Wednesday saying: “Five years since we didn’t know what was about to hit us."

In a nod to one of the most popular lines from the iconic show, she added: "Slainte Mofos!"

Siobhán McSweeney, who played series favourite Sister Michael on the hit show also tweeted to mark the show's fifth birthday. She wrote: “Five years ago today.

“All changed, changed utterly.

“Sweet suffering Jehovah.”

After its initial debut in 2018, Derry Girls went on to air three critically-acclaimed and record-breaking seasons, as well as a post-finale special on the Good Friday Agreement.

Around the time of the show’s 2018 premiere, Channel 4 said: “Derry Girls is the creation of acclaimed writer Lisa McGee who has mined her own experiences to create a candid, one-of-a-kind, family-centered comedy set against the backdrop of The Troubles.

“The series follows Erin (Saoirse Monica Jackson), her cousin Orla (Louisa Harland), and friends Clare (Nicola Coughlan), Michelle (Jamie-Lee O'Donnell), and Michelle’s tag along English cousin, aka The Wee English Fella, James (Dylan Llewellyn) as they navigate their teens in Derry in the early 1990s.

“The series also stars Tommy Tiernan as Erin’s long-suffering father, Tara Lynne O’Neill as Erin’s mother, Ian McElhinney as Granda Joe, and Kathy Kiera Clarke as Aunt Sarah."

The show was an instant hit across the globe, attracting fans near and far and well and truly placing the city on the map as a place full of love, history and craic.