DERRY, Northern Ireland — Few cities are as caught between hope and history as Derry, the birthplace of the modern Troubles but also the backdrop for “Derry Girls,” the exuberant, wildly popular British TV series that chronicles the lives of five teenagers as that bloody period was drawing to an end in the 1990s.
Now, though, after nearly 25 years of peace, residents worry that Derry’s hard-won gains are in jeopardy. Brexit has disrupted Northern Ireland’s fragile political and economic equilibrium, while the British government seems determined to put the Troubles and its legacy of sectarian violence firmly in the past.