“Hi Ciara. Let’s kick off at the beginning. How you got involved with Derry Girls?

I came onto the project a bit later on in the process than usual as the production were working towards a tight deadline, and so needed a hand with clearances as well as creative work. By that time, they had already established that they wanted a ‘throwback heavy’ soundtrack. The writer, Lisa McGee, wrote Derry Girls based on her own experiences living in Ireland in the early 90s, so it was great fun looking back at what the girls would have been listening to then, and trying to find tracks that would resonate specifically with that time period to an audience listening in 2018.

Beyond some iconic 90’s hits playing a key role, what were some of the themes or ideas you and the showrunners decided to explore?

It was important for the music to fit not just chronologically but also geographically, and using Celtic music was a really simple way of underlining the utter Irish-ness of the show – if the accents weren’t enough! We ended up using quite a bit of Celtic/folk rock, like ‘I’m Shipping up to Boston’ by Dropkick Murphys and ‘Devil’s Dance Floor’ by Flogging Molly, in the ‘scoring’ moments – usually when the gang have got themselves into trouble! That kept the trad feel whilst remaining contemporary enough to not jar against the rest of the soundtrack.”