Tommy Tiernan in Belfast for filming of Channel 4 sitcom 'Derry Girls'

IT'S NOT every day a nationalist area of west Belfast is bedecked in Union flags while Orangemen assemble for a morning march.

But that was the unexpected scene greeting bemused residents off the Springfield Road yesterday as filming got under way for a new Channel 4 sitcom.

Union and Ulster flags were flown and red, white and blue bunting strung between the terraced houses along Forest Street and Fort Street.

And men wearing Orange collarettes and bowler hats were seen lining up along one of the streets and surrounding a red car.

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Curious residents peered out of their terraced homes as the area was transformed into a unionist enclave.

The scene was part of filming for Derry Girls, which tells the story of ordinary people in the 1990s in the run-up to the ceasefire through the eyes of a local teenager.

Comedian Tommy Tiernan and former Eastenders actress Tara Lynne O'Neill were among the cast on set for the busy day of filming.

The show is written by Lisa McGee, who has been inspired by many of her own experiences of growing up in Derry in the 1990s.

Speaking after the sitcom was commissioned last year, Ms McGee said she was excited to tell fresh stories from Northern Ireland and have a "varied cast of female characters".

"Anything set during the Troubles tends to be a bit grim and bleak, but that just wasn't my experience of Derry as a child and a teenager, it was a joyful place. I'd like to celebrate that," she said.