Nicola Coughlan responds to brilliant ‘Derry Girls’ mural outside Irish gay bar – Irish Post
ONE OF Derry Girls’ most iconic moments has been immortalised in the form of a mural as Ireland celebrates Pride month.
Every fan will remember the ground-breaking episode in season one of the hit show, when Derry girl Clare reveals she is the ‘wee lesbian’ that the whole school has been speculating about, leading to Erin having to grapple with her own internalised homophobia.
Despite the seriousness of the subject matter, the episode was praised for being as light-hearted and as hilarious as ever, while dealing with real-world issues– and providing the LGBT+ community with representation on one of the most popular shows on TV.
Now, as Ireland and much of the world celebrates Pride month, a mural depicting Clare’s coming out scene has been painted on the wall outside iconic Dublin gay bar The George.
Created by talented artist Emmalene Blake, whose past projects include the brilliant Sinéad O’Connor as well as Bernie Sanders and Katie Taylor, the mural appeared over the weekend and has garnered huge praise online– including from Nicola Coughlan herself.
Artist Blake revealed the mural on Instagram and wrote “Happy Pride to all the wee lesbians and other LGBTQ+ folk! Hope everyone is having a great weekend.”
She added “Really hoping season 3 is out soon coz we could all do with more Derry Girls in our life now”– a sentiment we absolutely agree with.
Coughlan commented under the Instagram post, saying it was an “honour” to be featured, and saying “I love it so much”.
The actor also shared the image on Twitter, writing: “How cool is this?! Thank you @emmaleneblake”!
How cool is this?!! Thank you @emmaleneblake 🌈 https://t.co/8ydn7rN8xx
— Nicola Coughlan (@nicolacoughlan) June 27, 2021
It’s not Blake’s first Derry Girls mural– in 2019, a mural depicting the brilliant Sister Michael rolling her eyes appeared on a wall close to a recently-closed popular pub, which was being torn down to make room for a hotel.
Blake painted the popular character raising her eyes to the heavens in her trademark exasperated style, with two speech bubbles stating “Another hotel? Christ”.
You can follow Emmalene’s work on Instagram here.
