Derry Girls star is Galway to her core!

By Connell McHugh

It’s difficult to imagine anybody but the current cast of Channel 4’s hit comedy Derry Girls playing all of our favourite characters. Whether its Jamie-Lee O’Donnell’s feisty Michelle, or Siobhan McSweeney’s dry and uninterested Sister Michael, the cast seems to play off each other perfectly.

However, the Clare Devlin as we know her may never have seen the light of day if it wasn’t for one tweet – according to the actor that plays her, Galway native Nicola Coughlan.

Growing up as the youngest of four in Oranmore, Nicola always had an interest in acting. Her brother once got her a camcorder as a gift, and from there she would ‘torture’ her friends to be in her own home-made movies.

A past pupil of Scoil Mhuire and Calasanctius College in Oranmore, Nicola was just 17 leaving school and entering NUI Galway.

“I found getting work after college really tough,” she openly admits. “When you leave college you’re thrown in to this world and you’re a nobody, back at square one.

“I think I was on a bus home when I saw the Old Vic Theatre tweet that they were holding open auditions, which is basically unheard of for such a prestigious theatre.

“It was a really big deal for me to book those flights to London, and I really saw it as a last-ditch attempt at acting to be honest. There were 1,500 people at those open calls and I was selected as one of the final seven for Jess and Joe Forever.

“When it was on in The Orange Tree Theatre I got signed by Curtis Brown and then my first gig with them was Derry Girls.”

And thus Clare Devlin was born.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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