Meet the stars of Netflix’s ‘proudly Irish’ new thriller

It’s now been eight years since the beloved comedy series Derry Girls burst onto our screens, with the show rapidly becoming a worldwide phenomenon and sending its lead cast on the path to stardom.

Now, four years on from its conclusion, the show’s creator Lisa McGee is back with a new project, veering away from teenage schoolgirls and focusing this time on a group of adult female friends who are forced to grapple with the shocking death of one of their own.

Set in Northern Ireland’s capital, the eight-part Netflix thriller How to Get to Heaven from Belfast centres on chaotic TV writer Saoirse (Roisin Gallagher), glamorous but stressed-out mother of three Robyn (Sinéad Keenan) and carer Dara (Caoilfhionn Dunne), who all spoke to Metro ahead of the show’s premiere.

Friends since their high school days, the trio are left floored when contacted by a mysterious woman and told that the estranged member of their teenage friendship group – Greta – has died.

Coming together to attend her wake, it at first appears the friends simply want to pay their respects – but it soon emerges there’s a long-held secret they want to make sure Greta never revealed to anyone. Matters are made even more complicated when they discover she’s not actually dead – after a truly unfortunate accident that unfolds after breaking into her her casket.

This shocking development sets in turn a dangerous trip across Ireland as they try and piece together the details of who their former friend actually was – and reflect on how they helped her cover up a shocking crime when they were just schoolgirls.

After initially discovering that McGee was working on another series, Gallagher admitted that she ‘tortured and begged’ her agent for a chance to audition.

‘I wanted to make sure they kept their ear to the ground and not let this opportunity pass as I really wanted to take part,’ she recalled.

For Keenan, this series also marked another chance to work with McGee, after previously appearing in her shows including Derry Girls, London Irish and Being Human.

‘Lisa was enough! When the call came in, I was like yes send the script over!’ she laughs.

When first developing her new show, McGee discussed her desire to create another series focusing on female friends. ‘Sometimes we get too obsessed with romantic relationships – friendship groups fascinate me,’ she said two years ago.

Despite the show’s dark undertones, it is also a beautiful exploration of female friendship – specifically one that has also endured as the three women became adults and followed their own life paths. Along the way the trio bicker, argue and drive each other bonkers – but always come back together.

Speaking about the importance of maintaining bonds developed in formative teenage years, the stars said this series was an ode to platonic love rarely seen on screen.

‘If you are lucky enough, to have met friends you have maintained from when you were 11 or 12, they have known you at every state,’ Keenan explained.

‘At your best, at your worst and when you are finding yourself and making those massive mistakes. And they’ve helped cover up or get you over or through or out of different situations.

‘I am lucky enough to have two friends I met in school. And my dad has that too – I don’t think it’s just a female thing. If you are lucky enough, hang onto those for dear life – because they are gold.’

Throughout the series, there are countless Irish cultural and political references – from a hilarious cameo from The Late Late Show host Patrick Kielty, confusion over whether one character has joined the IRA, ISIS or BUPA, and a religious joke that declares: ‘DNA is like Catholicism, it doesn’t wash off.’

For the three stars, they declared they ‘love how proudly Irish the series is’.

‘I think it’s important that when you are telling a story of a place, that you realise as much of the reality of that place and that often is in how people speak. It’s also to do with the land, their class, history – there’s so much in it,’ Gallagher explained.

The Belfast raised actress – who is best known for starring in the series The Dry and The Lovers – also recently described getting to use her natural accent in this show as a ‘privilege’.

‘I left drama school in 2008 and there was definitely a sense of needing to be rid of my natural speaking voice, because people wouldn’t understand or there weren’t any parts available to me – that’s what the messaging was,’ she explained.

‘Whether that was perceived correctly or not, I don’t know, but I know that for my 21-year-old self, that’s what it felt like.

‘So, to fast-forward to being in a Netflix show using my own voice and not having to water it down or change that vernacular, is very special and important.’,

For Dunne – who has appeared in Ghosts, Chernobyl, Doctor Who, Industry and A Thousand Blows, she’s also noticed a marked difference in Irish accents being embraced on screen since she started her career.

‘Where I would have previously been asked to tape in my own accent and also an English one, but now it’s been fine to do it with my Irish accent, which is grand,’ she explained.

‘It’s an extra thing you don’t have to think about. And the more we perform in our own accents, the more people become attuned to them and less need for subtitles and all that.’

Speaking about the inclusion of Irish language throughout the series, all agreed this was ‘massively important’ and something they were ‘very proud’ to be part of.

For Dunne, she also hoped it might help her down the line too. ‘Some day somebody will be able to pronounce my name!’ she laughed.

With the show set in Northern Ireland, there are references to the decades- long conflict of The Troubles that ravaged the area from the late 1960s to 1998. Whilst most of these nods involve passing jokes being made, Gallagher said it was ‘necessary and essential’ to mention this formative time.

‘That part of history is woven into the fabric of the place and therefore the people, and therefore why people do what they do and say what they say and behave the way they do,’ she said.

‘Humour is a coping mechanism. There’s a collective macro-level shared experience of division that through storytelling like this. I feel certainly as an audience member, because that’s what Derry Girls gave me, is a real reflection of what it was actually like, and a better understanding of some of the history of the place, without being dictated to or in an educational sense – it was just a better understanding. For me it is just totally essential – you just can’t leave those things out.’

While McGee ended Derry Girls on a poignant note with the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, this series will likely leave viewers begging for another season after wrapping up on an almighty cliffhanger.

Although the stars can’t reveal anymore details about what unfolds, when asked about where they’d like to see their characters stories go in a potential second season, they all agree another trip abroad would be on the cards.

‘We would love the next adventure to go further afield – somewhere like the Caribbean. Wherever Lisa McGee wants to take us, we will go,’ they laughed.

How to Get to Heaven from Belfast is now streaming on Netflix.

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