Derry Girls Experience draws record Tower Museum numbers

Derry Girls has been a big hit for Channel 4, winning Royal Television Society Awards, Irish Film and Television Awards and Baftas

Londonderry's Tower Museum welcomed a record number of monthly visitors following the launch of an exhibition based on TV show Derry Girls.

The Derry Girls Experience officially opened to the public on 3 July.

In its first four weeks more than 10,000 people visited the museum, according to Derry City and Strabane District Council

It was the highest number of visitors in a four-week period since the museum opened in 1992.

Derry's Mayor Patricia Logue said the show had "heightened the international profile of the city".

The exhibition, she added, had more than doubled the projected visitor numbers.

The exhibit boasts original sets, props and other 90s memorabilia from episodes over the show's three series

Derry Girls, which first aired on Channel 4 in 2018, follows four teenage girls - and "a wee English fella" - growing up in the city during the 1990s.

It tracks the group as they navigate the ups and downs of teenage life, against a backdrop of the final years of the Troubles.

The Derry Girls Experience contains memorabilia from the comedy.

It boasts original sets, props and other 90s memorabilia from episodes over the show's three series including the cast's school uniforms, Erin Quinn's diary, Ma Mary's Woolworths sweater and the teenager's Spice Girls costumes.

Some items include pop tarts from Breakfast scenes, FatBoy Slim concert tickets and a ballot box

In June, the month before the Derry Girls exhibition launched, 2,399 people visited the museum.

That rose to 7,780 in July.

Visitor numbers for 2023 have already surpassed the 17,600 people that visited the Tower Museum in 2022.

The "rebuilt" Child Of Prague statue from series two of the show is on display in the museum

The chief executive of the body tasked with promoting Derry as a tourist destination said the exhibition was playing a key role promoting the city.

Odhran Dunne from Visit Derry said, people from 34 countries had visited the exhibition.