Lisa McGee has told the Radio Times why she felt compelled to write last night's heart-wrenching finale to the first Derry Girls series.
The episode, which was described as "so brilliant, so moving" by TV critic Richard Osman, was trending on social media last night as the fifth most discussed topic worldwide.
McGee told radiotimes.com that the ending, which featured reports of a horrific bomb attack filtering through on TV, was not based on any particular incident from the Troubles.
“I thought if I’m going to do this show and show this side of things, I have to at some point show that there were times when it floored you,” she said. “I thought, I’ll probably do that at the end because it wasn’t a joke either.”
“I had a nod to that, there were lots of mundane bomb scares and things like Orange Order parades, where you had to change how you might go about your journey. There were lots of day-to-day things that were funny but occasionally there was something big like Omagh, that the whole nation went ‘this just has to change’ and I think, I wanted to mix that in with this ‘life goes on’ thing. It had to be at the end.
“I’ve not based anything on any particular incident, but it was just something at that scale.
“There were lots of times when your family stood around the TV and just couldn’t speak because this was people in your own place doing it to each other. I just wanted to nod to the fact that there were those times as well.”
Meanwhile, Nicola Coughlan, whose character Claire came out as lesbian in last night's show, said she was "bawling" watching the episode live.
She tweeted: "Trending fifth worldwide, FIFTH WORLDWIDE, I cannot, we love ye thank you so much for all the support #DerryGirls."
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