star Siobhán McSweeney is heartbroken to be leaving the role of Sister Michael after five years, but says it’s a good time for the show to end.
Next week, after a two-year delay thanks to the pandemic, the first episode of the Channel 4 programme’s new series will finally arrive.
The moment is set to be bittersweet, as it marks the beginning of the end for Lisa McGee’s sitcom, which will finish for good at the series three finale.
Cork native Siobhán, who plays the brilliantly droll nun and headteacher of Clare, Erin, James, Orla and Michelle’s school, says it’s devastating for the show to end but it’s come at the right time.
‘It broke my heart to hang up the habit,’ she told Metro.co.uk.
‘When I heard it was the last [series], yeah it was very disappointing but it also slightly made sense to me.
‘There’s a logical limit to how long these things can go, and there’s great dignity in bowing out before it gets s***, frankly!’
Siobhán, who also hosts the Great Pottery Throwdown, says she has been ‘given numerous gifts’ from playing the nun, and it will be hard to say goodbye.
‘I do think people will cry at the end – I think I’ll be one of them,’ she admitted.
So what has Siobhán taken from the set as a keepsake from her time on the award-winning show? Sister Michael’s iconic habit, surely.
‘Oh f*** that, no. I hated that thing!
‘I couldn’t get it on my head,’ she says. ‘I don’t know how those women do it.
‘There were staple guns, pritt-stick, the whole f***ing shebang, I don’t know how it stays on their head.
‘For continuity, I would need a little bit of hair sticking out and there was a big huge conversation as to whether the ears should be sticking out or not and I’m like “Oh this is a disaster.”
‘Because everything else about her was so easy. So I was happy to see the back of that.’
While Siobhán is happy to hang up the habit, she has taken a few Sister Michael moments, including ‘the picture of wee Daniel O’Donnell’ that sits on her desk.
‘I also have Sister Michael’s Aran geansaí, and with Cathy Prior, our costume designer’s permission, I want her smoking jacket because I just think it’s f***ing class.’
Fans will be delighted to learn that the new series will delve further into the lives of Sister Michael, as well as Father Peter and the adults of the show, with Siobhán noting ‘everybody has such a huge fondness for every single solitary character.’
‘It is an ensemble piece, it sings only when you have the full ensemble.
‘Everybody gets their moment [in the new series], it never was really about the Derry girls, it was the whole community.
‘Lisa has done every character proud.’
Derry Girls returns to Channel 4 on Tuesday, April 12 at 9.15pm.
