Headscratchers / Derry Girls

• Everyone keeps going on about James being English, but... why? His mother is Irish Catholic and as she went to England after becoming pregnant expressly for an abortion, there is a chance his dad is as well. He simply learned to speak and lived in Britain for 16 years, that doesn't make him English, right?
  • There is never any implication that James' dad was English. Kathy had to go to England because abortion was illegal in both Ireland and Ulster in the 1970s
  • He has an English accent, came from England and is used to British norms. That might be enough for people.
  • Not to mention, he clearly considers himself English.
  • Difference between Irish culture and standards here. Ireland has historically been a very homogeneous country due to the poor economy and years of British oppression - and it wasn't until the late 90s that an economic boom led to it being considered a First World country, and the following immigration from other nationalities and ethnicities went up. So anyone who didn't grow up in Ireland or speak with an Irish accent was not considered Irish, regardless of parentage. My parents are both Irish and I only lived in Britain until I was 8, but I still have my accent, and I'm considered English because of it. Non-white Irish people are often asked where they 'really' come from, because that mindset is still ingrained in our culture.
  • Because he was born in England and lived there most of his life
  • Are you seriously asking if being born and raised in England makes you English? Of course it does. Having Irish heritage is just that - heritage. It doesn’t erase the culture and country he grew up in.
• Presumably Our Lady Immaculate College has no P.E. lessons, or James is excused them. There aren't any boys' toilets, so James wouldn't have his own changing room or showers.
  • As for showers, yes that might be a pickle, but they may simply allow him to change in the empty classroom while the girls change in the changing room. For that matter, we never do find out what sort of arrangement they found for James' toilet situation after episode one had him in a Potty Emergency - if they allowed him to use the teachers' bathroom, he can change in one of the stalls there too plus at least that place is sure to have a sink built in (the classroom may or may not have one) which is less than optimal but better than nothing...
  • Also, unlike American schools, it's fairly common for UK schools not to have showers, or if they do have them they're not used before or after PE classes but for sports teams or swimming lessons if the school has a pool. Assuming James can change in the loo then he's as set up as any of the girls are.
  • Maybe they arranged it so that James uses the showers before or after the girls use it.
  • There probably aren't showers. In my school, we did PE as is and just changed afterwards without showering.
  • And it's only in the first episode that it's said there's no boys' toilets, because that's James's first day, and he's the first male pupil the school has had. And technically it's Michelle who tells him off for wanting to use the girls' toilets, not the staff. So it's reasonable to assume that after the first day, they worked any such arrangements out.
• It probably can be dismissed as Rule of Funny, but why is James friends with the girls when they're dismissive of him at best, outright abusive at worst, insult his heritage and masculinity (or lack thereof) on a regular basis and drag him into their harebrained schemes?
  • He already lives at Michelle's place and the rest are Michelle's friends. Chalk it up to proximity if you want to, or a fear of what boys his age might do once they hear his accent (remember, he was sent to the girl's school specifically, so he won't be beaten to within an inch of his life day by day). For what it's worth, James does bring up how he's hardly felt at home in Derry when talking about going back to London with his mum.
  • As a teenager, you often fall in with people out of convenience or proximity. James himself says in the Season 2 finale that he thinks he may have "just developed Stockholm Syndrome or something".
  • I'm Northern Irish. But a Belfast Girl, not a Derry Girl. How the girls treat James is normal in Northern Irish culture. Vitriolic Best Buds friendship are the norm, it's even the type of friendship I have with my granny. The reason James doesn't treat the girls as Vitriolic Best Buds is because he's England and that type of friend isn't the norm.
    • Well in the south, it's not common. Oop North friendships tend to be like that too. But James is clearly from the south, judging by his accent. But a more depressing possibility is that his mother is clearly an awful person from what we know of her - meaning he's not likely to have experienced much affection growing up. So he's probably used to being mistreated or belittled and his standards for friends are extremely low - and the girls are occasionally nice to him. And there's the fact that the girls do grow to care for him, while his mother obviously doesn't.
  • Because he didn’t know anyone else and showed no skills at making new friends, others would still bully him for being English and a bit of a wuss, and he actually liked hanging out with the girls? Hair-brained schemes are usually quite fun.
• At Bridies wake, James is freaking out because it is the first dead body he sees. But what about Sister Declan, who died while he had detention? He even got into trouble because of it.
  • He was presumably too busy deriving relief from peeing to notice anything about Sister Declan just keeling over, and had his back turned to her so he wasn't looking at her. The other characters were also just registering that Sister Declan had just died. This is in contrast to Bridie's wake, when James is fully aware that he is in front of a corpse and starts getting anxious.
• Just what is the age gap between Ma Mary and Aunt Sarah? They both appear to have Leavers the same night which implies they're twins, but this is never stated. It also seems to be too convenient that twin sisters would have children around the same time.
  • It is mentioned in this episode that Sarah's a year younger so it isn't actually her Leavers night.
  Wee Deirdre: School's over, girls. It's reality now. Jobs, husbands, kids.
  Wee Aunt Sarah: Not for me. I have another year to do.
  Wee Geraldine: Yeah, why are you even here?
  Wee Ma Mary: My da made me bring her.
• It is often mentioned that not much of interest happens in Derry, or at least did back in the time the show is set in. So what does the guy running the VIP section at the Fatboy Slim concert do for a living when there's no world-famous musician visiting Derry, which is probably most of the time? He certainly acts as if running a VIP section is completely routine for him.
  • He could be employed by the tour, not the venue.
• Another "Why does X hang out with Y" question: why is Michelle friends with Erin, Orla, and Clare? All three of them are, in their different ways, pretty weird; Clare is a bit of a geek, Erin has her artistic pretensions, and Orla is, well, Orla. Meanwhile, Michelle is a pretty average party-loving teenage girl.
  • The main reason is that their mothers are all friends from way back, so the girls presumably have known each other since childhood and have been spending time together for years,and gradually became friends to the point that Michelle considers them to practically be family. They may all be different, but circumstances made them into one friend group. Plus, Michelle has mentioned being acquaintances and friends with other people, so she presumably has other friends besides the main characters.
• Janette Joyce, formerly O'Shea has red hair. Her husband, Richard Joyce who is a surgeon, looks like he also has red hair. Why does their daughter Jenny Joyce have brown hair?
  • Hair color is determined by multiple genes, and red hair is recessive. While two red headed parents are more likely to have a child with red hair, it’s by no means a certainty.