Sinéad Keenan to Lead 'Derry Girls' Followup 'How to Get to Heaven From Belfast'

Netflix has announced the start of filming for Lisa McGee's follow-up series to her hit show Derry Girls, How to Get To Heaven From Belfast. The series was initially announced in September 2023 as a Channel 4 project (the same network that produced Derry Girls), but with budget cuts looming and uncertainty over the network's fate, McGee decided the safest course of action was to shift her project to Netflix, which had been the streaming service that distributed Derry Girls outside the U.K. The decision put the show's timeline back from its originally planned 2024 release, but it currently looks worth the wait, with a cast that includes Unforgotten's Sinead Keenan.

Keenan has been on the rise ever since she starred in Season 1 of BBC's smash hit Showtrial in the fall of 2021 as a tough cop hellbent on finding the accused guilty. That role led to her landing the role as Nicola Walker's replacement on the ITV/PBS series Unforgotten, one of Masterpiece's most popular police procedurals. Filming for Unforgotten Season 6, her second season with the series, occurred in the spring of 2024 and recently wrapped up, with expectations the new season will debut in the U.K. before the end of the year and then head to America in 2025. 

Keenan will now shift to filming in Ireland for the Netflix series, co-starring alongside Roísín Gallagher, who is best known for playing the lead in the Ciaran Hines series The Dry in the U.K. (where two seasons have aired, as opposed to one here). But most Americans will recognize her from Netflix's recent podcast comedy-mystery Bodkin.

Here's the synopsis of the series, which follows a group of four friends in present-day Ireland:

The story follows three childhood friends – TV writer Saoirse, mother of three Robyn, and carer Dara – who are shocked to learn that Greta, the estranged fourth member of their group, has died. A series of eerie events at her wake set them on a dark, dangerous, and hilarious odyssey through Ireland and beyond as each tries to piece together the truth of the past. How to Get to Heaven from Belfast is a show about friendship, memory, and what happens when life doesn’t turn out quite like you'd expected.

Keenan plays the mother of three, Robyn, with Gallagher as the writer, Saoirse. Caoilfhionn Dunne (Industry) rounds out the main trio as Dara. Further casting is expected as filming continues.

As part of the start of filming announcement, McGee said: "I couldn’t be more excited to start production on How to Get to Heaven from Belfast. I’ve loved writing Saoirse, Robyn, and Dara – three flawed, funny women who are about to embark on the most thrilling and terrifying adventure of their lives."

How to Get to Heaven from Belfast does not yet have a release date but is expected to arrive sometime in 2025.