The diminutive Derry Girls star isn’t afraid to speak her mind, even if it costs her fans and followers
Back in 2008, when Nicola Coughlan was at drama school, a guy in her class swaggered over and, with all the brimming confidence of young men in the noughties, asked her, “Do the Irish think the English are really cool?” Coughlan, born in Galway, mimes processing the question. “Well,” she said, “it’s quite complicated. Like, there’s a lot of history there, between the two countries. Like, there’s a lot going on.”
Today, people are more knowledgable about the history of the English in Ireland. Coughlan is happy about that. She’s also happy about the explosion of Irish storytelling in popular culture – Normal People, Trespasses, Small Things Like These, not to mention the series that made her name, Derry Girls. And she’s proud of young Irish actors – Paul Mescal, Barry Keoghan and Lola Petticrew, to name a few. She listens to bands such as Fontaines DC, CMAT and Kneecap. “It’s such a small country and the amount of creativity that comes out of Ireland is really extraordinary.”
But now there’s a different kind of English guy, the one who swaggers over “to explain Irish history to you through the music. I’m like, ‘No, no. I know all of that.’ Like, ‘I know why [Kneecap] is wearing a balaclava, yes. I know why all of it.’” And then there’s the person who congratulates her for having an elected leftwing female president in the form of Catherine Connolly. “I’m like, ‘Our third. Our third female president. And by the way, Michael D Higgins, her predecessor, is incredibly leftwing. And a poet.’”
Depending on your viewing tastes, Coughlan is either most recognisable as Clare Devlin from Derry Girls, the sublime comedy about Catholic teens set in the Troubles in 1990s Northern Ireland, or Penelope Featherington from Bridgerton, the Jane Austen-meets-Gossip Girl Netflix juggernaut in which she plays a Regency debutante with a secret. She’s become equally well known for her frankness – refusing, even under considerable pressure, to stop talking about Gaza or abortion or trans rights. She’s also not going to apologise for not meeting societal expectations of what a starlet should look like.