Political Humour in Derry Girls

This thesis investigates the role of political humour in Derry Girls, a sitcom created and written by Lisa McGee and set in Northern Ireland during the final years of the Troubles. While the series primarily follows the everyday lives of five teenagers, its humour repeatedly intersects with the political and cultural realities of 1990s Derry. The thesis argues that comedy in the show is not simply light entertainment, but a linguistic and cultural strategy for processing conflict. The analysis draws on Grice’s (1975) Cooperative Principle, focusing on how conversational maxims of Quantity, Quality, Relation, and Manner are deliberately violated to create humour. In addition, classical humour theories, superiority, incongruity, and relief, are employed to explain how maxim violations generate layered effects of ridicule, surprise, and emotional release. A corpus of four episodes was selected for close reading, each chosen for their narrative and political significance: the pilot episode, “Across the Barricade,” “The Concert,” and the series finale, “The Agreement.” The findings show that breaches of the Maxim of Relation are most frequent, often redirecting serious political topics toward trivial or absurd concerns. These moments of irrelevance highlight incongruity and invite laughter while also softening the impact of trauma through relief. Violations of Quantity and Manner further contribute to comedic momentum, often producing digressions and exaggerations that allow viewers to feel superiority over naïve or misguided characters. Ultimately, the thesis demonstrates that Derry Girls transforms everyday conversations into subtle political commentary. By filtering violence and conflict through humour, the series creates a unique form of storytelling in which laughter becomes both critique and catharsis.